A Second Chance
by CrazyGreyWolfGirl
Summary: Sakura couldnt take it anymore. After all that had happened, the pain was just too much for her. Finally reaching breaking point, she looks to her last resort: the forbidden scroll. timetravel ff SxS NxH NxT IxS PLZ READ! HIATUS
1. at the end, starting the begining

A/N: To those of you who are reading Cherryblossom in Pain, I know I need to update with it, but I have major writers block and it's killing me

**A/N:**** To those of you who are reading Cherryblossom in Pain, I know I need to update with it, but I have major writers block and it's killing me. I decided that since I'm stuck with that I might as well step away from it for a while and work on something else and when I come back to it I'll work on it and hopefully be over my writers block. Anyway I hope you'll like this fanfic and two more things before I get started with this story: 1. I won't be able to update extremely fast with this fanfic and 2. NO FLAMES!! ALL FLAMES ARE GOING TO TICK ME OFF AND THAT'S NOT GOOD FOR ANYONE!! Okay? Okay.**

**Disclaimer:**** I don't own Naruto T.T ARE YOU HAPPY NOW YOU STINKING LAYERS?!**

'_Text'_thoughts

"Text"speaking

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I couldn't take it anymore. The pain was just too much for me to handle. Orochimaru had launched the final battle against Konoha, and as a result, he was defeated by his ex-teammate, the whole village was destroyed as well as the Sound Village, and only a select few people survived the attack, and each person that was left was in critical condition with the exception of two people.

I'd lost everyone except for one person, but she was almost at her breaking point as well. I had to find some way to fix this.

I went to my last resort; I looked through the forbidden scroll.

I had already read and memorized the whole scroll. I knew how much chakra each jutsu needed, the handsigns, the conditions, but most of all the cost of every forbidden jutsu within the scroll.

Only one jutsu would work to fix what happened though. I had just enough chakra, I could now do the handsigns in my sleep, and the conditions worked to my advantage.

I was ready to perform the jutsu. Now I just needed to convince the only person I had left to go through with it. I had played out every argument she could possibly come up with, and I had a counter argument that overruled each one.

I sat in Tsunade-shishou's office. My mentor was the only one I had left. I sat in front of her and looked into her aged and wise hazel eyes. She took me off guard as she cut me off before I said anything,

"Yes, you can use the jutsu, I will be the second person that has to know and help, and yes, I know about your whole plan to fix things by going back in time. But before we start anything for this, we need to discuss a few things."

"What things"

I asked her, showing no emotion. I had learned to be even more stoic than the—now dead—Uchiha himself.

"Details to watch out for after the jutsu is performed."

"Which details?"

"Small ones that aren't going to sound very important but are going to make all the difference after it happens."

I raised a questioning eyebrow and she continued,

"One detail is the fact that you will still have your inhuman strength, your chakra levels, and all of your advanced jutsus that you've learned. You can't use them."

This is where my emotionless personality changes to the personality I inherited from training with Tsunade-shishou. I stood up and said,

"What! Why can't I use them?"

She remained calm, motioned for me to sit down, and after I did she said,

"Because if you do use them you'll raise too much attention to yourself. You're going to be a genin again and those abilities are too advanced for chunins and some jounins, let alone the mere genin you're going to be. I want you to keep yourself in check from letting yourself show off too much. There's more. I want you to tell your parents, Kakashi, and no one else. They need to know so that if something happens and you have to use an advanced jutsu they can help cover up for it. Also, since I'm going to remember everything as well, I'm going to tell Shizune about it and I'm going to come back to Konoha. I think there's just too much at steak if I don't. Then I can also tell everyone that I'm making you my apprentice so you can have a bit of freedom with some of the things you can do. This is the last thing; I'm just going to remind you that if this jutsu fails, the consequences can be fatal. Are you entirely sure that you want to follow through with this?"

I knew she was worried. Just like she was the last person I had left, I was the last person she had left. I was positive though. We were both at our breaking points and I almost went past mine until I found this jutsu. I was going to lose it one way or another if I didn't go through with this jutsu and I couldn't do that to her. I nodded my head with confidence and she lowered her head, sighed, and raised it with a look of confidence in her eyes that I hadn't seen in who knows how long. I smiled, it wasn't an entirely true smile, but it was the closest thing I was probably ever going to get to. She mirrored my smile and said,

"Very well, Sakura, go prepare yourself. We'll do the jutsu tomorrow at the basement of the hospital. I already have most of the preparations complete for it."

I nodded my head and left with one thought on my mind,

_'I can last one more night. Tomorrow, we'll do the jutsu, and get ready to fix…everything.'_

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**A/N:**** WOHOO!! FIRST CHAPPY IS UP!! I hope you guys liked it!! I'll update after the first three reviews. Tell me what you thought people!! I love it when people review!! If you have some constructive criticism I'll gladly accept it!! I hope you guys liked it!! I promise that the next chappy will be longer you guys!! The first one's always the hard one to put up, but I think I did well with this one. I don't know. Let me know people, I love reviews!! Especially long ones!! **

**Your absolute FAVORITE authoress (you know it's true, don't deny it!!)**

**CrazyGreyWolfGirl ((CGWG))**


	2. change starts today

A/N: okay people ^_^ I finally got my three reviews and I am happy about it ^_^

**A/N: okay people ^_^ I finally got my three reviews and I am happy about it ^_^. Now, just to let everyone know, I made this about 8 years after Sasuke left the village so Sakura's about 20 or 21 years old. This is going to be a fun chappy because you get the privilege to see my brilliance create my own jutsu ^_~. **

**SPECIAL THNX TO ****Dreamergirl92813**** FOR BEING THE FIRST PERSON TO REVIEW TO THIS FANFIC!!! SPECIAL THANKS TO ****Koo2Koo1Ka2choo1**** FOR GIVING ME THE LONGEST REVIEW!!!! THANKS YOU TWO!!!**

**By the way peoples…HAPPY HALLOWEEN ^_^ FREE CANDY WOOHOO!!**

**Disclaimer:**** I OWN NARUTO AND I RULE THE WORLD!!!!!! ……-wakes up- dang it. I don't T.T**

"Text" =talking

'_Text'_=thoughts

'**Text'**=inner

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We went to the basement of the hospital. It was the largest and most perfect place to do the jutsu. Just as Tsunade-shishou had said, she had already drawn the circular diagram with each of the complicated symbols within it.

We were in position with me standing precisely in the middle of it facing her while she was sitting at the middle of it facing me. She nodded at me to begin the jutsu. I started to form the handsigns necessary while focusing my chakra throughout the designs of the diagram. I had gotten my chakra through each of the designs and I was holding the last handsign, with one last burst of chakra I completed the jutsu shouting,

"Time-space-no-jutsu!!!!!!"

There was a blinding flash of light and I closed my eyes. Moments later the light died down and I opened my eyes just to see what looked like my old bedroom from when I was twelve. I sat up and checked every last bit of my surroundings as well as myself to be sure that everything was alright.

Everything was just how I remembered it: my long hair, my room, my bed, and even the long mirror I had used to make sure that I looked okay when I was twelve.

I did something I hadn't done in a very long time: I smiled. The jutsu worked! I checked to see what time it was and the date. It was the day of the academy where we were going to be put into our squads as genin. And I was 7:45 in the morning. I didn't have to be at the academy until 10:00.

_'Well, first things first, I need to cut my hair and get a decent outfit. There's no way that I'm ever going to wear that stupid red dress ever again.'_

I got up and went to my closet to look for something to wear. I found a pair of shorts that stopped just above my knee, a red skirt that had rips up both sides of it, and a short-sleeved red shirt with my clan symbol on the back. I decided not to get black gloves yet, and I had my kunai holster on my right thigh.

Then I went to the bathroom and cut my hair just barely past my shoulders and my bangs were cut to right at the bottom of my chin. To finish off the outfit, for old-time's sake, I put the ribbon that Ino gave to me when we were little on with it tied at the nape of my neck instead of the ridiculous bow at the top of my head.

Finally I was dressed in my new look and I checked to see what time it was. Since it was only 8:15, I went down stairs to go and eat breakfast. I sat down after making myself a bowl of cereal. I saw a little note on the fridge and got up to read it.

_Dear Sakura,_

_Sorry honey, your father and I had to go out for a while. We'll see you when you get home. Good luck on your graduation today sweetie!_

_Love always,_

_Mom and Dad_

I smiled again. My parents were alive!! And I was going to keep it that way too. I finished my breakfast and went to the academy. This was going to be a great day.

I decided I was going to be nothing like the brat I was before and since I had all the extra time, I through and did all of the chores around the house that I managed to get out of before. I was done with everything at 9:30.

I figured it wouldn't hurt to be a little early to the academy so I went out and locked up the house behind me. Then I walked off towards the academy with sudden excitement I never thought I'd ever feel after Orochimaru attacked the village. Out of that excitement I ended up picking up my pace and jumping from rooftop to rooftop towards the academy. As a result, I was at the academy 20 minutes early.

I was even earlier than Sasuke. Another thing I wasn't going to do anymore was act like I was a fangirl like before.

I sat down at one of the tables that were by the windows and in the seat closest to the windows too. I looked out of them and stared to space out thinking about how much I was going to change the future and how things were going to play out.

**Third person POV*****

Sakura was so lost in thought while staring out the window that she almost didn't notice Sasuke walk in. but she did. Her senses were too sharp now. Even still she didn't even acknowledge him as he sat down three tables behind her.

_'That's weird…I thought she was a fangirl. Don't they usually come late because of stupid girl stuff? Whatever, it doesn't matter anyway.'_ Sasuke thought.

Then his inner came in. **'She's different….she's hot too. Especially since she cut her hair, she looks better with shorter hair.'**

_'I don't think about anyone like that. Especially fangirls, they're so annoying. Now shut up. We're supposed to focus on revenge.'_

**'Fine I'll leave you alone about her…for now.'**

That successfully ended Sasuke's conversation with himself. Unfortunately for him though, he was staring at Sakura the entire time, and she noticed. It ticked her off. She absolutely _**hated**_ all of the fanboys she got when she started training under Tsunade.

In an irritated tone she asked him,

"Sasuke, what are you staring at?"

He was taken back when she didn't start squealing at him, and instead sounded annoyed.

But of course, he being the human icecube he is, said, "Hn," and looked away. Finally getting back to his own thoughts, he stared out the window and the two remained like that in a silence.

After a while the room started filling up. Sure thing Naruto showed up and noticed Sakura sitting by herself. **(A/N: oh boy, here we go.)**

He walked up to her and nervously said to her,

"Hi, Sakura-chan! I saw you were sitting alone and I was wondering if I could sit next to you."

Sakura smiled up at Naruto and said,

"Sure Naruto, no problem."

Naruto gave her his famous foxy grin and reminded her just how much she had missed him after what happened in the future.

_'Dang…I forgot just how much I missed him.'_ She thought. Again with the inner,

'**Yeah, it's sad to think that could happen.'**

_'Yeah, but it's not going to happen again.'_

**'You've got that right.'**

She started to talk to Naruto and not five minutes later they heard the defining screeches that could only be the sound of fangirls. Sure enough when they looked back they saw a horde of fangirls hovering over Sasuke with hearts in their eyes. It was a good thing that Sakura stopped being a fangirl as she realized that she actually _**loved**_ him and it wasn't just a crush.

Sakura started to laugh. She couldn't help it. She forgot how stupid it was and how ridiculous it sounds to be a fangirl.

Unfortunately, Sasuke heard her laughing, and he gave her THE Uchiha death glare. That made Sakura start to laugh harder. Every single fangirl heard her laugh and they got ticked. Then they all glared at her.

Sakura finally got a _little_ control over her laughter and told the,

"You guys call those glares? They're **PATHETIC**!!!!!"

Ino stepped out from the horde of fangirl and in the most obnoxious voice ever,

"Who do you think you're calling pathetic, BILLBOARD-BROW?!?!?!"

Sakura smirked and replied,

"Oh just you, all of those annoying fangirls, oh yeah, and I almost forgot, Sasuke's attempt of a glare. Got a problem with that Ino-chan?"

By the time she was done saying that Naruto busted out laughing.

Ino was shocked. Sakura hadn't called her that since they were little, before Sasuke came into the picture.

"Wait, what did you call me?"

She asked in an unbelieving voice.

Then Sasuke spoke up and said,

"Attempt?!?"

You could see his eye twitching, (Twitchy…twitchy.) still glaring at her.

A random fangirl spoke up and said,

"Let's see your glare Ms.-High-and-Mighty!!"

Sakura smirked,

"Oh, you don't want to see my glare. Almost all of you would pee your pants…on second thought, I will show you my glare. It'll be worth a good laugh."

Sakura barely glared at them. Not a death glare, it couldn't even be considered a decent glare to her and Tsunade.

All but seven fangirls screamed bloody murder and ran out towards the bathrooms with their pants darker than they were before…it smelled too.

Sasuke was taken back…again. Even though he wouldn't admit it, he was grateful that she got the fangirls away…most of them anyway.

The remaining fangirls were trying to get closer to him shrieking unintelligible things.

Sakura sighed and looked at the still laughing Naruto and said,

"Come on, Naruto, let's go save him from…"

She paused and turned her head towards Sasuke's direction so he could hear her and continued,

"His _**PRICELESS**_ torture."

Naruto looked up at her and started to object until she said,

"I'll buy you two bowls of ramen if you come with me."

Naruto asked,

"Wait, how many bowls?"

Sakura answered in a dead pan voice,

"Two, that's all, I'm not stupid enough to buy you more than that. Now come on."

The two walked over to a very tortured and annoyed Sasuke. Sakura and Naruto sat down at his table so that the order from the window to the isle is Sasuke by the window, Sakura in the middle, and Naruto in the isle.

The fangirls exploded on Sakura just to be silenced by Sakura's 'pity' glare. She said,

"I'm only sitting here to get all of you to shut up and if I don't stay between these two they'll start bickering like a couple of little four year olds. It's not like I enjoy babysitting the two of them. I don't exactly enjoy sitting next to the emotionless ice cube of the year either."

Both boys looked at her with their eyes twitching saying,

"Babysitting???"

Every single boy in the class except for Naruto and Sasuke busted out laughing so hard it hurt their stomachs.

The fangirls started to advance towards sakura until she 'glared' at them again. Finally it was peaceful as all of the remaining fangirls sat down at random seats. All drooling over Sasuke. The fangirls that had to leave since they peed in their pants finally came back and followed suit of the others.

Naruto finally got tired of it and got up on the table in front of Sasuke and glaring at him at eye level.

Of course Sakura remembered what had happened next and decided that it wasn't going to happen this time.

She rolled her eyes and stood up. She lightly pushed Naruto an the shoulder and said

"Come on Naruto knock it off before you make a fools of both you and Sasuke."

Both boys ignored her and kept glaring at each other. That pissed her off. So she grabbed Naruto and Sasuke by the ear and nearly threw, Naruto off the table, and yanked on Sasuke's ear shouting,

"You two will listen to me when I'm talking to you! YOU IDIOTS!!"

That got the whole room's attention. Sakura was clenching and unclenching her fists while keeping her eyes shut trying to clam herself down.

She calmed down enough and sat down to open her eyes and see everyone staring at her so she irritably said,

"What are you looking at?!?!?!"

Causing every person to look away and make a mental not to NEVER tick her off.

Finally Iruka showed up…late. He noticed how it seemed less restless than usual and looked up to see Sasuke NOT crowded by fangirls and sitting next to Sakura Haruno. Knowing not to jump to conclusions he decided to ignore it and go on to the graduation tests.

"All right settle down! I apologize for being late, but the Hokage called for a meeting this morning. Now today we will do a quick test to see who will graduate the academy. All of you line up in alphabetical order."

Sakura sighed, stood up and went in line towards the front. Then she waited to be called. It was finally her turn and she stood in front of the people left.

"Make two clones of yourself."

Iruka told her. She nodded and did the handsign for the shadow clone jutsu and produced two exact replicas of her.

Iruka inspected them and nodded saying,

"Perfect. You pass."

Sakura smiled and went back to her seat to wait for the rest of the class to be done.

In the end everyone passed **(A/N: I'm going to have Naruto pass this too. I don't want to go through that whole Mizuke scene.)**

Now Iruka set them up in their teams.

"Team 7: Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, and Sasuke Uchiha…Team 8: Hinata Hyuuga, Kiba Inuzuka, and Shino Aburame…Team 10: Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, and Chouji Akimichi."

They were told to go to lunch after that to get to know their teams.

Sakura knew she had other things to do, like training, so she grabbed her bento and left without a word to her teammates.

She found a good spot to train and decided to work on her flexibility since her 12-year-old body wasn't nearly as flexible as her 18-year-old body.

After spending a good amount of time on that she climbing exercises to strengthen her stamina.

She decided she might as well eat soon after that. She went closer to the academy and sat on a bench and began to eat. She finished and not two seconds later, Naruto showed up as Sasuke just staring at her trying to be "cool".

Sakura tried to hold back a laugh as "Sasuke" walked closer to her. Then he said,

"Sakura, your forehead is so wide and charming. It makes me want to…kiss it."

Deciding to play along, Sakura said, "Really?" the best she could without laughing.

Then "Sasuke" said,

No. that's the kind of dumb thing Naruto would say."

Then he sat down next to her and asked her,

"Sakura…what do you think of Naruto?"

She paused to give the allusion of thinking and said,

"He can be very annoying, but I know that if you were to look past that you would be a great friend, Naruto."

"Naruto? What are you talking about? I'm not that idiot."

He said.

"Sure Naruto, by the way…you might want to work on changing you chakra signature, work on rolling your r's more and not say as much in one sentence if you want to try and imitate Sasuke."

Sakura said.

"Whatever, I'm not Naruto."

He said as he got up and walked way thinking,

_'How did she know?'_

Knowing what was coming next, Sakura sat there and waited for the real Sasuke to come. She had something she wanted to say.

Sure enough, here came Sasuke walking along the path. Sakura "randomly" wondered aloud,

"I wonder if Naruto acts like that because he's never had parents."

That caught Sasuke's attention so he paused and asked in an annoyed tone,

"What did you say?"

She looked up in perfectly acted shock to make him think she didn't mean to say that out loud.

"I was just thinking that maybe Naruto acts like a clown because he's never had parents, so he acts like he does to get the attention he's never had. You had parents so you've been given that kind of attention even though they're……not alive anymore…yet you still had that attention. I'm lucky enough to still have my parents so I've had that kind of attention and still do."

She explained.

Sasuke was taken back…again. He caught that part about his parents and wanted to know how she knew.

"How do you know about my parents?"

He demanded.

Sakura shrugged and lied in answer,

"My parents told me about what happened."

That wasn't enough for him. He asked,

"Why didn't you tell me you knew?"

She gave him a weird look and responded,

"I figured that it wasn't my business, so I kept my mouth shut. I think—no, I **know**—that if that happened to me I wouldn't want anyone's pity so I wouldn't tell anyone about it. It's not their business, they don't need to know."

Sasuke was shocked. He didn't show it of course, but he was honestly surprised that someone who had been his fangirl the day before is now coming out with that.

_'She really is different.'_

He thought. Then his inner self came up again.

**'Yes she is. She's hot, especially in that outfit, she's not a fangirl, can control other fangirls, respects out…family situation…and is just about PERFECT!!!!!! Ask her out!'**

Sasuke responds to his inner with a very irritated 'no' and decided to leave. He just nodded and waked off saying, "Hn."

Sakura who was satisfied with her work, decided to go back and wait for Kakashi. She got there and since she was obviously the first one there she went over by a window and sat on top of the table with her legs crossed. Then she started to work on her already perfect chakra control as she meditated.

10 minutes later, in walked Sasuke, a little smug after giving Naruto a nice beating to be surprised to see a relaxed and meditating Sakura sitting on a table. He shook it off and went to go sit at a different table seeing as she was busy meditating.

5 minutes after that a very beaten up Naruto walked in. Sakura was too busy meditating to really pay any attention to him and Sasuke just ignored him. Naruto went over and sat down.

A few minutes later Naruto got tired of waiting, and set up the little prank with the eraser at the top of the door so that it would fall on Kakashi's head when he walked in.

A while later the pinkette sensed her "new" sensei coming and stopped actually meditating, but to keep the semi-quiet (Naruto wouldn't stop complaining) she made it look like she was still meditating.

Of course Kakashi walked in holding his disgusting favorite orange book, falling for the eraser trick, followed by Naruto bursting out,

"I can't believe you fell for that!"

Then Kakashi delivered the all famous line,

"My first impression of you three is…'I hate you'."

Sakura snapped open her eyes and startled her two teammates by saying,

"That's funny, my first impression of you is 'You're a pervert who must not be all he's cracked up to be since he can't even make it here on time'…so I guess we're even."

All three of the shinobi were shocked at that. Only Naruto actually showed it on his face though. Sakura just had a straight face looking at Kakashi.

Kakashi sighed and said,

"Alright, lets' meet up at the roof and introduce ourselves to each other."

In a puff of smoke he disappeared.

Sakura rolled her eyes and got up. She waited for the other two to leave before opening a window, jumping out while using her chakra to stick to the wall, and running up to the roof to meet a very surprised Kakashi.

Sakura remembered her conversation with her mentor about telling Kakashi about her being from the future. She decided that it wouldn't be safe to tell him while they were so out in the open.

So she walked over and sat down across from where he was sitting. She got bored and decided to see if she could tell who was around her and exactly how far away they were. She got comfortable and looked off in a random direction while using her chakra to scout the area.

She sensed Sasuke and Naruto halfway to the roof, Azuma and his student in a neighboring building, Kurenai and her students by the academy where the little swing was and…no…it couldn't be…it's impossible…that couldn't happen…

**'We might be in trouble.'**

Sakura's inner thought, Sakura replied,

_'I think you might be right. I hope not. It would be dangerous if you are.'_

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**A/N: I am so evil. I hope you guys like my little cliffy here. I made everyone shocked at Sakura A LOT!!! Aha, I'm evil. It's fun. Thank you to the three people who updated. I'm sorry about not having this up sooner, but after I got my third review I was attacked by my cousins who don't know what TIME TO LEAVE ME ALONE FOR A BIT OF 'ME' TIME IS!!! Anyway I hope you guys liked the chappy ^_^.**

**VERY IMPORTANT!! READ: I want you guys to review and tell me who they think Sakura sensed along with an idea for me to put in this fanfic. The first person to guess it right will get their idea put in my fanfic!!! SO REVIEW!!!!**

**Dreamergirl92813:** Hey thanks for being the first person to review to my new fanfic ^_^. Try to guess who she sensed along with an idea for this fanfic and if you guess it right first I'll put your idea in here.

**Night'sBullet:** I love your pn. Thanks for the review. I'm glad you like my story ^_^ I'll try to update soon. Just like I'm telling everyone, please try to guess who Sakura sensed and add in an idea for me to put in my fanfic and if you're the first person to guess it right I'll put it in here.

**Koo2Koo1Ka2choo1:** YAY LONG REVIEW!! ^_~ thanks for the awesomely long review. I hope I didn't leave you hanging for too long…that would be bad. I'm soo glad that you like mine that much!! I hope this chappy wasn't crappy. That would suck if it was. Anyway, like I'm telling everyone, try to guess what Sakura sensed along with an idea of yours in a review and if you're the first one to get it right I'll put the idea in my fanfic….lolz, your review reply is the longest ^_^.

**HAPPY HALLOWEEN PEOPLE!!!!**

**LOVE YOUR FAVORITE FF AUTHOR:**

**CRAZYGREYWOLFGIRL!!!**


	3. not what anyone expected from her

**A/N:**** I AM SOOOOOO SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG TO UPDATE!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAVE ONLY **_**TWO**_** CHAPTERS UP!!!!! I THOUGHT I HAD MORE!!!!!! T.T I'M SO SORRY YOU GUYS!!!!!**

**Disclaimer:**** I don't own Naruto, BUT I do have an awesome necklace with the leaf village symbol on it which makes me an official leaf village kunoichi ^_~.**

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There were ANBU blackopps EVERYWHERE!!!!! Every single one of the soon-to-be rookie nine was surrounded by ANBU.

She just couldn't understand why they were surrounded.

_'Unless…'_ she thought, _'…what if…'_

Flashback

_'There! Now!'_ In one last burst of chakra, the jutsu was finished and Sakura woke up in her old room she had as a 12 year-old.

End Flashback

_'That last burst of chakra must've been sensed and the ANBU must be trying to find out who it was,'_ Sakura concluded in her thoughts.

She then decided that she was going to relax knowing that her chakra wasn't going to give anything away. That last burst depleted a good amount of chakra and her chakra levels seemed at the right level for a genin.

She started to space out, letting her mind wander while she waited with Kakashi for the other two members of the group.

A little bit later, Sasuke popped up out of nowhere. Soon after followed by Naruto who freaked out since he was the last one up there and he didn't even see Sakura lave the room.

"Sakura-chan! How the heck did you get here before me and Sasuke-teme?" Naruto asked.

Kakashi remained oblivious as Sakura smiled and said, "I can't tell you. It's a secret."

Naruto was about to say something in retort when Kakashi snapped his book shut and said, "Okay, now that we're all here, let's introduce ourselves and tell a little bit about ourselves: what are your likes, dislikes, hobbies, and goals."

Sakura remembered what had happened last time and said, "Why don't you go first? That way we'll have your introduction as an example."

Kakashi nodded and introduced himself, "My name is Kakashi Hatake. I like a lot of things. I don't have a lot of things I don't like, as for my goals……. I have a few hobbies."

Sakura sweat-dropped. _'Some things never change,'_ she thought. Then Naruto spoke up.

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki! I like training and ramen. I don't like the three minutes it takes to make ramen, my hobbies are training and eating ramen at Ichiraku. Oh yeah! My goal is to become the next Hokage! That way the village will stop disrespecting me and treat me like I'm somebody!"

Sakura smiled. Naruto would never change. Then Kakashi had Sasuke go next.

**(****A/N:**** Oh boy…here we go. Brace yourselves!!!)**

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I don't really like anything, and I hate a lot of things. I guess training would be my hobby. I don't have a goal, more of an ambition. I will make it happen, I'm going to kill a certain…man…and then restore my clan."

Sakura managed to hold in a laugh thinking, _'Could he get any more dramatic? That was just too funny!!'_

After quickly controlling herself, she said, "Well I guess that leaves me. I'm Sakura Haruno. Let's see, I like a lot of things, but a few of them are music, and cherry blossoms. I can't stand selfish people, spicy food, fan girls and fan boys, avengers, and the death of people I care about. My hobbies are training, reading, and learning about great ninja's like Tsunade-sama. My goals are to become the best medic-nin, to surpass Tsunade-sama herself, and to protect the people I care about."

Okay, now that just about got all of them going haywire in their thoughts. So I'll go to each one and show you what they were thinking.

Naruto:_ Wow! Sakura-chan's totally awesome! ...but who's this Tsunade person?_

Kakashi: _That's impressive. At least I have one student who's entirely serious and has at least a little bit of knowledge on what she's going to be facing as a ninja of the leaf._

Sasuke:_ Who's Tsunade? It's a woman so she can't be all that strong. She hates avengers? What's her problem? I don't like her. She'll get in my way._

Sakura:_ I wonder what they're thinking about._

Kakashi spoke up, "Okay. Now that we all know each other, tomorrow meet me at training grounds 3. It'll be your first mission. Oh, and if you don't want to throw up…don't eat breakfast."

In a puff of smoke he was gone. Sakura, knowing what would happen tomorrow, turned to her teammates in warning.

"I honestly don't think we're going to go on a mission that bad, so I suggest you actually eat breakfast. We're just genin after all. We're not allowed to go on top-rank missions that'll make us puke until we're at a higher level. Also, Kakashi-sensei is known to be late for everything, so we could probably show up about two hours late and still be there before him. That's just my little piece of advice."

Then without waiting for them to say anything, she turned and headed towards a nearby edge with a tree by it and jumped off the roof into the tree, then onto the road. This made Naruto run to ledge to see if she was okay and shocked him when he saw her walking on the road, unscathed, towards wherever her house must've been.

Sasuke started to think**(A/N:**** uh-oh. That can't be good.)**

_'Whatever. Uchiha's don't puke so I was going to eat anyway.'_

**'Uh-huh…sure you were.'** His inner said.

Naruto simply had his mind on ramen so he didn't even pay attention to what Sakura said.

--

Sakura went off towards her favorite training spot and did some weaponry training.

She had been there for a half an hour and she could sense someone she had really missed coming her way.

She acted like she hadn't sensed anyone and a few seconds later she heard a voice, "Oh! I didn't know there was anyone else here. I'm sorry. I'll go somewhere else."

Sakura smiled and turned to meet a brunette looking at her with an apologetic brown eyes. The rosette said, "It's okay; you don't have to somewhere else. We can both train here….I'm Sakura by the way…Sakura Haruno." She held her hand out.

The brown eyed kunoichi shook hands with the green-eyed girl saying, "Thanks, I'm Tenten."

They both started training and they went through a scroll of weapons each. Not one of their weapons missed their targets.

Sakura acted like she was a little tire and looked at Tenten who was perfectly fine as she lied, "Dang! You're good! I had to use chakra to make sure I hit my targets. Think you could help me out a little?"

Tenten smiled as she thought, _'I like her. She seems like a good friend.'_

Then she answered, "Sure Sakura-san. It's all basically in the wrist and the shoulder blade. You keep them relaxed but controlled. It's hard at first, but after a while you get used to it and it's a piece of cake."

Sakura smiled in return. She said, "Thanks! Oh, and its okay if you call me Sakura-chan or even just Sakura. I don't mind."

Then she went over and collected her weapons. Tenten followed suit and got her weapons saying, "Cool. You can call me Tenten if you want. I don't care either."

"Cool. I'm running low on weapons. Wanna come with me to go buy some more?" was Sakura's reply.

"Sure. I'll show you some really great ones that'll actually work better in battle."

"Thanks Tenten-chan."

So the two kunoichi went shopping for weapons. Neither of them realized that they were being watched during their training by two protégés. Both of which were very impressed by the skills of the two girls.

Both thought, _Dang, she's stronger than I thought…wait, WHAT? Why am I even bothering to watch her train? It's just wasting time I could be using to train.'_

Of course then their inners came in saying, **'It's because you like her and you know it.'**

_'Whatever.'_

Then both the Hyuuga and Uchiha protégés left. Neither of them even realized that the other was there.

**(****A/N:**** some protégés. -.-)**

--

Tenten had to go after she went weapon shopping with Sakura and Sakura decided she wanted to do something.

She was walking through the village streets looking for someone in particular.

_'There she is,'_ she thought. Then she said, "Her, do you mind if I come in and talk to you?"

Ino was shocked._ 'What is with her today? She's been acting really weird.'_ She thought.

"What do you want Forehead?" the blonde asked.

The green eyed girl who had walked into the Yamanaka Shop smiled and said, "I said that I wanted to talk to you."

Ino rolled her eyed and said, "I know that Billboard-brow. What do you want to talk to me about? Want to tell me to back off Sasuke-kun or something? Brag about being on his team?"

Sakura laughed and said, "No. It does have to do with him in a way thought."

Ino raised an eyebrow in questioning. Sakura just continued, "I'm sorry for being so stupid before. You can have Sasuke if he asks you out. I won't care……much. I was _stupid_ to stop being your friend because of him. Besides," she pulled out the red ribbon Ino had given her when they were little, "this ribbon was given to me by my best friend. I don't really feel like changing that. What about you Ino-chan?"

While the pinkette was talking Ino was simply shocked. She was wide-eyed, mouth hanging open shocked.

She finally recovered enough to smile and respond, "Yeah, I guess you're right. I guess we're done fighting….So what brought all this up?"

Sakura smirked and said, "Consider it an epiphany….So now that we're friends again, wanna go do something fun?"

Ino said, "I wish I could, but I've got to help my mom with the flower shop all day today. How about tomorrow?"

Sakura nodded her head and said, "Yeah, I understand. That'll work. I'll come by sometime tomorrow. See ya Ino-chan. I'll get going and let you get to work."

"See ya Sakura-chan." With that Sakura left.

After she left the Yamanaka Flower Shop, she decided it was time to go home. She got there and saw her parents. She smiled and hugged both of them.

Confusedly her mother asked, "So what brought all of this on? You cleaned the entire house and you're willingly hugging us, of your own accord too."

Sakura laughed and said, "Yeah, I guess I just realized that I was taking too much for granted. From now on out you guys are going to think of me as a completely different person. I'll explain more tomorrow after training with my new teacher, Kakashi-sensei."

She turned to leave only to be stopped by her dad saying, "Is that outfit part of this new you? Along with the haircut?"

She looked down at the clothes she put on this morning. Then she got an idea, "I'm not entirely sure about the outfit. The hair, yes, my hair is going to be short now. I'm going shopping tomorrow to see if I can find something else for my outfit. Anyway, um, would you guys mind if I remodeled my room?"

Her parents smiled and nodded their heads as her mother said, "Sure thing sweetie."

Sakura smiled and went to her room. She headed straight to her closet and nearly emptied it completely. She kept a few things that she could use later like leggings, shorts, and other things like that. Then she grabbed her mirror and shoved it to the back of her closet and allowed herself to completely forget about…literally.

Then she turned to look around and see what else she was going to take care of. She sweat-dropped at the number of fashion magazines she had and threw them all out. Once her room was finished as far that went, she started to rearrange the furniture. She pushed her bed under the window and her dress on the opposite wall of her closet which was on the left wall if you walked in through the door. She looked around and sighed. She would have to ask her mom to let her have the desk her parents never used.

In the future she discovered that she was really good at singing and started writing songs. She grabbed an empty notebook and wrote 'Song Journal' on the cover and started to write. By the time she went down to eat dinner with her parents, she had already filled the book with all of the songs she had already written…which was a lot. That night she had a dreamless sleep.

--

The next day Sakura woke up to the sound of her mother coming to wake her up. She decided to fake sleep and let her mom be the mom and "wake her up".

In walked her mom. She quietly walked over to her daughter and gently shook her to wake her up.

Said girl groaned sleepily and turned to face her mom with sleepy eyes saying, "I'm up. I don't want to be, but I'm up."

Her mom rolled her eyes and laughed. Sakura never was, and ever will be, a morning person.

Her mom walked out calling behind her, "Don't forget that you said you had to meat with your new sensei early this morning."

Sakura sighed and got up. She went to her closet and got dressed in the same uniform as yesterday, tied her headband the to the top of her head, an strapped her kunai holster and pouch on.

She lightly went through her hair with a brush. She didn't really care about how she looked, but it bugged her when she could feel that her hair was ratted up.

She grabbed her money for shopping later. She went down stairs and hugged her parents in good-bye after putting on her boots. Then she left.

She stopped by a little tea-house and has some breakfast before heading towards the training grounds.

On her way there she saw Sasuke at a distance wandering around, but he wasn't going towards the training grounds.

_'Good, I need to do something before anyone can see me there.'_ She thought.

She got there and sighed as she used her chakra to scout the area like before. Again, she sensed ANBU all around her and they seemed to be around Neji who seemed to be training at a closer training ground and Sasuke who seemed to be aimlessly wandering around.

She sighed as she thought, _'They never suspect the women! I'm stronger than both of them right now and I will be in the future. But do they care? No! Because their all stereotypes that can't believe the female species is a lot stronger than they think!'_

She started to do some flexibility training while she checked to see if there was anything worth worrying about if she accidently overdid anything using her chakra.

After seeing that there was nothing to worry about internally she started to "practice" tree climbing. She purposefully messed up a lot and stopped after about the 20th time falling while acting like she was ticked off about not being able to do it.

Then she sighed and sat down to meditate for a while. She did that for a while and got up and started to "practice" some taijutsu. Purposely doing horrible once again.

She sighed after a while and pulled out a scroll she put in her pouch earlier after she asked her dad for one.

Flashback

"Hey Daddy! I know you're an ANBU for the village, so you probably have a few scrolls with jutsus in them. Can I barrow one for a while?" the pinkette asked her dad after dinner.

"Sure…but how did you know I was a shinobi let alone an ANBU?" her father said.

"Oh, well…I'll be able to explain that tomorrow." Her father just looked at her and shrugged. He muttered under his breath,

"Well, at least I'll be able to stop trying to hide it." He disappeared and in a few seconds he reappeared with a scroll. He held it out to his daughter who took it with a smile saying thanks.

Her dad smiled back and you could tell that his daughter got a good majority of her personality from her father and her smile for that matter. Sakura got up and opened the scroll to read through it. As she read it she walked toward her room. Her father just smiled and thought, _'A new her. Now I see what she meant. At least now she's got herself something on her mind other than that boy she's been obsessing over.'_ With that he went to bed.

End Flashback

She opened it and started to read it. The scroll was about a jutsu she had learned when she was 14, but was going to "work" on it now that she was a genin again.

She pretended to work through the hand-signs and "frustratingly messed up" a lot of times. After a while of doing that she put the scroll away and started to go towards the meeting area where she was supposed to be waiting for her sensei.

She was Sasuke and Naruto already there. She checked what time it was and realized she was an hour and a half late and Kakashi wasn't going to arrive for another hour. She suddenly had an idea. She silently crept towards her teammates since they hadn't noticed her coming towards them from behind. She was careful even to the point that concealed her chakra even though they wouldn't be able to sense chakra yet.

She smirked as she was a foot away from them and they hadn't noticed. She snuck a bit closer and flicked both of them in the back of the head.

They both spun around, ready to punch/kill, until they saw Sakura behind them smiling with her hand up with two of her fingers in the shape of a V.

Sasuke scoffed, rolled his eyes, and turned back around muttering, "annoying," and thinking, _'How did I not sense her when she was right behind me?'_

**'Because she amazing! Now ask her out!'**

_'No. She's annoying and she'll get in the way, and I don't like her.'_

Naruto on the other hand jumped out of his skin and started saying/yelling, "Wow Sakura-chan! That was awesome how you surprised me! It's easy enough to sneak up on the loser right next to me, but to get me! That's awesome! How'd you do it though?"

Sakura smirked and said, "That's my little secret. I guess Kakashi-sensei's late like last time."

Sasuke scoffed, "Look who's talking."

Naruto looked at Sakura and said, "Yeah, you're late too ya know Sakura-chan. Why? I started to get worried. There's a lot of freaks out there."

Sakura's future famous temper flared and she got one of those anger marks on her forehead as she managed to say in a calm, deadly voice, "Well, I was training. I lost track of time when I was trying to work on a jutsu from a scroll my dad gave to me. And just for the record, Naruto, I can handle myself when it comes to freaks…my dad's a shinobi, and actually he's an ANBU. He teaches me a lot of things. I already learned a jutsu that helps me if I want to take care of some sort of idiot stupid enough to try messing with me."

Naruto just looked confused while Sasuke looked stoic, but if you looked really closely you could tell that he was ticked off.

Sakura just sighed out in frustration and said, "Never mind, just forget that I said anything. Anyway, until Kakashi-sensei comes I'm going to be over there." She pointed to a tree off to the side, but still in eye-sight and continued, "Don't bother me while I'm over there."

Naruto just whined while Sasuke grunted the usual grunt. Sakura rolled her eyes and walked over to the tree and pulled out her little lyrics book and opened it to a song she had copied the lyrics from a band she had liked. She started to softly sing.

--

Sasuke was shocked when not only did his pink-haired teammate surprise him after being an hour and a half late, but was late because she was training and was starting to work on a jutsu from a scroll her father gave to her. Then she started saying that her dad was an ANBU and was helping her train! Even still, after that, she left them to go sit over by a tree with the audacity to order them to stay away from her.

Now Sasuke wanted to know what was so important that she left. Not to mention he was getting annoyed by Naruto. So he told Naruto to shut up while he told Naruto to shut up while he went over to a different tree and secretly made a substitute that sat down while the real him hopped from tree to tree towards the tree Sakura was sitting under to see what she was doing.

Naruto felt left out. He tried to decide weather to go over to Sasuke and sit, or go over to Sakura who told him to leave her alone while she was over there.

While Naruto was debating, Sasuke was hiding in the tree above Sakura and almost fell out from shock when he heard her starting to sing a song he had never heard of before.

**(A/N:**** This song is Whisper by Evanescence. Check it out. It's an awesome song.)**

"_Catch me, as I fall._

_Say you're here and it's all over now._

_Speaking to the atmosphere,_

_No one's here and I fall into myself._

_This truth drives me into madness._

_I know I can stop the pain if I will it all away._

_Don't turn away_

_Don't give in to the pain_

_Don't try to hide_

_Though they're screaming your name_

_Don't close your eyes_

_God knows what lies behind them._

_Don't turn out the light._

_Never sleep never die._

_I'm frightened by what I see._

_But somehow I know that there's much more to come_

_Immobilized by my fear_

_And soon to be blinded by tears._

_I can stop the pain if I will it all away._

_Don't turn away_

_Don't give into the pain_

_Don't try to hide_

_Though they're screaming your name_

_Don't close your eyes_

_God knows what lies behind them._

_Don't turn out the light._

_Never sleep never die_

_Fallen angels at my feet_

_Whispered voices at my ear_

_Death before my eyes_

_Lying next to me I fear_

_She beckons me shall I give in_

_Upon my end shall I begin_

_Forsaking all I've fallen for I rise to meet the end."_

He wouldn't admit it, but he thought she had a nice voice. The song she was singing was obviously from the heart and Sasuke, without knowing it, had listened to the entire song.

After she was done with it, the only thing that Sasuke could think was, _'Wow'_. His inner on the other hand had more to say.

**'She really is perfect! She's not a fan girl**, **she controls fan girls, she's obviously strong, she has the perfect voice, she's hot, she PERFECT!!! NOW ASK HER OUT ALREADY!!!'**

_'No.'_

**'Why not?!?!'**

_'Because we need to focus on __revenge__, she's annoying, and I don't like her.'_

**'Whatever.'**

Sakura looked through her lyrics book and found another song. Just as she was about to start singing, Naruto started walking towards her half shouting, "Hey Sakura-chan! Can I come over here? Sasuke-baka's being boring and I figured you'd be more fun to hand around with than him anyway."

Sakura sighed. She sensed Sasuke's chakra in the tree and realized that Naruto was probably sad because he was left alone and he'd had enough of it before.

She looked at him with soft eyes and said, "Sorry Naruto. But no. I'd prefer to be alone for the time being. Go bug Sasuke and see if he'll spar with you or something. I'm sure you could beat him anyway."

Naruto took that as a compliment and said, "Okay Sakura-chan. I guess I'll just have a go at him for now."

With that he walked off. Sakura leaned against the tree, put aside her lyrics book, and in a flash she was behind Sasuke in the tree with a kunai to his neck.

She was seething as she said, "Sasuke you baka, you had better leave and stay away from me until Kakashi-sensei gets here, and also, I hoped you enjoyed that little performance because I know you were there while I was singing. And if you ever try to spy on me like that again, I'll personally beat the living crap out of you."

With that she suddenly reappeared at her spot under the tree and Sasuke, being smart for the first time that day, went back to his tree and waited for Naruto to challenge him to a sparring match.

Sure enough, Naruto did, and the two were sparring against each other.

Sakura knew they wouldn't bother her so she turned back to her lyrics book. She turned to a random song that she liked and that was by the same artist as before and started to sing again.

**(A/N:**** This song is Imaginary and it's also by Evanescence. You should listen to this song too. It's awesome.)**

"_I linger in the doorway,_

_Of alarm clock screaming_

_Monsters calling my name._

_Let me stay_

_Where the wind will whisper to me._

_Where the raindrops_

_As they're falling tell a story._

_In my field of paper flowers_

_And Candy clouds of lullaby._

_I lie inside myself for hours_

_And watch my purple sky fly over me._

_Don't say I'm out of touch_

_With this rampant chaos—your reality_

_I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge_

_The nightmare I built my own world to escape_

_In my field of paper flowers_

_And candy clouds of lullaby_

_I lie inside myself for hours_

_And watch my purple sky fly over me_

_Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming_

_Cannot cease for the fear of silent nights_

_Oh how I long for the deep sleep dreaming_

_The goddess of imaginary light_

_In my field of paper flowers_

_And Candy clouds of lullaby._

_I lie inside myself for hours_

_And watch my purple sky fly over me."_

As she was singing, she didn't realize that she had started to get louder and louder to the point that her voice echoed from the trees and you could hear her over the sound of Naruto and Sasuke fighting.

--

Kakashi was at the memorial stone for shinobi that were killed in action, or KIA. Then he heard someone singing, and it was amazing. He decided that it was time for him to go meat up with his students anyway. So he stood up with his last prayer for his best friend, and left toward the training grounds they were meeting at. He decided that he was going to check out whoever was singing.

He was absolutely shocked that it was his new female student. He saw that she was so lost in her singing that she hadn't noticed him standing by her. After she finished her singing he said, "Wow, Sakura that was something I wasn't expecting. My only student that is actually entirely serious about her training and being a shinobi for her life, and you could just forget about that and start a profession as a singer. You have an amazing singing voice. That was a nice song too. Did you write it?"

Sakura jumped a little when her teacher showed up beside her after she was done singing and looked at him with a blank look saying, "Thank you for the compliment, and no I didn't write the song. An American band called Evanescence did."

Sasuke and Naruto showed up while she was in the middle of saying this and Naruto said, "That was you Sakura-chan!! Wow! You're an awesome singer! How come you never told us that you sing?"

Sakura looked at him and said, "I'm surprised you heard me over your sparring match with Sasuke. Thanks for the compliment, but I'm not that good at singing. I think I'll be better when I get older, but still I won't be as good as you two keep saying I already am. Anyway, Kakashi-sensei is here so let's start with what we're doing."

Sasuke remained silent and irritated about his inner. I think it'll be enough to say that he added modest to the list of "Reasons why we should ask Sakura out" list. And then he bugged Sasuke to ask her out. And he said no.

Kakashi led the three of them to the center of the training grounds and said as he lifted two little bells, "Your challenge is to take these bells from me before noon."

Sakura knew it was her turn to speak and said, "But Kakashi-sensei, there's only two bells. One of us won't get one."

Kakashi smiled behind his mask and said, "Very perceptive Sakura. You're right. Only two of you will get the bells. The one that doesn't fails the test and gets sent back to the academy."

Naruto exploded, "But we just got here from the academy!"

Kakashi nodded and said, "Yes, that was just a test. This is the last test. If you pass, you're officially a genin, if you fail, you get sent back to the academy and you hand back your headband to Iruka. Now get ready."

Naruto already jumped at Kakashi with his shadow clones and attacked. He easily dodged and had Naruto in front of him while he was twisting his arm back with a kunai to his neck.

"Hasty much? I didn't even say to start yet. Now in order to get the bells you must attack me and take them from me. Attack with the intent to kill or else you'll fail."

With that he suddenly appeared a good ways away from all of them and said, "Begin."

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**A/N: ****I'm sorry about the cliffy, but I couldn't figure any way to end the chapter without it. At least it's long!! Its ten pages long and there's still more to come!! I hope you liked it though.**

**REVIEW!!!!! I had to improvise at the end because I didn't have all of this in my notebook yet so I made stuff up. ANY SUGGESTIONS ON SAKURA'S NEW OUTFIT ARE WELCOMED!!!**

kunoichixakra thank you so much for the review!!!! I'm sooo sorry about taking so long to update. T.T Anyway thank you for calling me your favorite author!!! ^_^ lol. I hope you like this chapter. Oh! Can you please help me with the outfit Sakura's going to wear after the bell test.

GreenQueen08 Awww thank you!!! ^_^ Please help me make an outfit for Sakura!! I'm really stuck on what it's going to be.

Inteme-Diamond thanks for the review!!! *cowers in fear* sorry it took so long lol just kidding. I'm sorry for the long wait for the update. I'll be writing a lot more lately so I will hopefully be able to update soon. *crosses fingers for luck* lol. ^_^ hey, can you help me think of a good outfit Sakura's going to wear from now on? I can't think of one.

Animesbestfriend Awww. Sorry about taking so long for this chapter. I'll hopefully have the next one up soon. I'm glad you like it!! ^_^ I hope you can help me with Sakura's new outfit…I can't think of anything…-.-

insaneanimelover lol. Its no big deal. Just review for this one too ;P lol just kidding. Hey! Help me with Sakura's outfit please!!!

DanichT02 lol sorry for taking so long…hm…I'm not stopping now. I hope you like what I have so far. Please help me create an outfit for Saku-chan!!! I need help!! T.T

**YAY!! THE CHAPTER IS UP!!!!!! Now let's hope the next one will be up soon. NO GUARENTEES!!!!! SORRY I WISH THERE WERE BUT THERE ARENT!! T-T**

**You're apologetic but favorite author, **

**CGWG-chan!!! ^_^**

**DON'T BOTHER INSANEANIMELOVER FOR MY UPDATES! IT'S NOT HER FAULT!! IT'S MINE SO BOTHER ME!! IT MIGHT MAKE ME WRITE FASTER!!**


	4. the bell test and the truth is told!

**A/N:**** I AM SO FRIGGIN SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG TO UPDATE!!!!!! I'M SO SORRY!!!! I wish I had an excuse but all I can say is that I'm finally getting out of my writer's block. But other than that, that's it. T-T I'm sorry!**

**Disclaimer:**** -sigh- must I do this? I mean does it even make sense that someone would write something like this if they actually did own the series? –Sigh- fine…I'll say it…………Idon'townNaruto…there! Happy?**

**Now on to the story, I still don't know why anyone would think that I own the songs in here either…-walks off complaining under my breath-**

_**THANK YOU TO EVERYONE THAT SUBMITTED A DESIGN FOR HER OUTFIT! JUST LETTING EVREYONE KNOW, I TOOK BITS AND PIECES FROM EVERYONE'S IDEAS! IF IT DOESN'T SEEM LIKE IT, THEN YOUR IDEA INSPIRED ANOTHER IDEA FOR SAKURA'S OUTFIT! OR EVEN INO'S OUTFITS!**_

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

_Recap:_

_With that he suddenly appeared a good ways away from all of them and said, "Begin."_

Chapter 4

Sakura and Sasuke quickly disappeared, but of course, Naruto didn't. He attacked his new sensei head on, which of course didn't work.

_'That baka…he'll never change.'_ Sakura thought with a smile.

Last time, Sakura didn't pay attention to much since she was too busy finding a place to hide. This time she only hid a small distance away and hid her chakra while she watched.

"One thousand years of pain!" was all Sakura heard Kakashi say as he formed the tiger seal. Sakura started to freak out not knowing what was going to happen next.

She ran through each jutsu she knew and tried to figure out what Kakashi was doing, but she soon stopped freaking out as she saw her sensei literally poke the blonde boy's butt, which sent said boy flying into the nearby lake.

After that the silver-haired man disappeared and Sakura came out of her hiding spot to help Naruto.

She was laughing as she got to the edge of the water to see a very disgruntled teammate. She held out her hand and said,

"Come on Naruto. There's no use staying in there."

Naruto grabbed her hand and she pulled him out of the water. Sasuke was watching and scoffed saying "Pathetic. She should've left him. He was stupid enough to attack the Jounin in the first place."

With that he left. Meanwhile Sakura was still laughing while Naruto looked put out.

The emerald-eyed girl eventually calmed down and told the blonde shinobi,

"You should know that because of the fact that he's at least two ninja ranks higher than us, you can't attack him alone. You gotta work together with your teammates. That's the whole point of putting us in teams. Now come on. We gotta go find the other baka on our team."

Naruto laughed as the two walked quickly towards the cover of the trees.

_'Impressive……Sakura figured it out already…this could prove interesting.'_

The two finally found their chicken-butt-haired teammate in a tree.

Sakura covered Naruto's mouth before he could scream at his soon-to-be best friend, and quietly called to the boy,

"Hey Sasuke! Get down here! I don't feel like dragging this baka up there!"

Sasuke glared at them and came down from the tree asking in a very annoyed voice,

"What do you want?"

Sakura gave him a look that said 'Well-excuse-me-mister-high-and-mighty' and replied in a voice only she could use to where she sounded offended but she didn't care because she was talking about something much more important,

"Rude much? I just wanted you to know that it would probably be best if we were to work together. I mean, come on. We're taking on a well-known jonin and we're just a bunch of genin. Do you really think we can just take him down on our own?"

"I don't need you or the dobe behind you. I can handle Kakashi myself."

The pinkette sighed and replied,

"And here I thought I wouldn't have to spell it out. This whole thing is a teamwork exercise. That was the whole point of putting us on teams of three. Now are you going to work with us and get a bell, or are you going to try to get a bell yourself?"

Sasuke hesitated for only a second,

"As I said: I don't need you. I can handle myself."

"You're going to regret that. But fine. That's your choice. We'll see how it all works out in the end. Now come on Baka. I have a plan."

She finally dropped her hand from the cerulean eyed boy's mouth to reveal his famous foxy grin and said,

"Okay Sakura-chan!...Hey! Why'd you call me a baka?"

Without saying a word, Sakura turned around and left with Naruto trailing behind her. Sasuke scoffed, rolled his eyes, and muttered,

"Like they could get a bell. They'd just get in the way."

Sasuke went on his own way, forgetting about his teammates, and started to form his own plan.

Meanwhile in the cover of a different tree, Sakura took out her lyrics book, tore out a page, and wrote down her plan. While she was writing, she told her blonde teammate,

"Okay, so you're going to create four shadow clones. I'll make three. You'll disguise one of them as me and with the clones you'll attack Kakashi-sensei. I'll be underground and I'll be waiting for the right moment to grab the bells."

"Okay Sakura-chan!" Naruto said as he read the paper his pinkette teammate had given him.

"Good. Now let's split up and look for him. If you find him, create a shadow clone to come get me."

"Got it."

With that the two left in different directions.

About five minutes later, our favorite pinkette heard what sounded like a battle cry and quickly ran to the place she heard it from while masking her chakra.

She was up in a very concealing branch to see Kakashi suddenly disappearing, Sasuke frantically looking around, and then said Uchiha being grabbed by his ankle and being pulled down into the ground to the point that the only thing visible was his head.

Sakura made herself stay perfectly stiff and still so that Kakashi wouldn't be able to tell that she was there.

It was about three minutes after Kakashi left that Sakura finally let it out. She quickly climbed out of her hiding spot in the tree and the moment her feet hit the ground she doubled over laughing so hard it hurt her.

Sasuke first stared at her with a look that could only have one fitting description: WTF?!?! This only made the pinkette laugh harder.

Eventually Sasuke started to give her a death glare which only made the Haruno shinobi laugh harder if that was even possible.

Eventually, after more glares and laughs, Sakura calmed down. She got up and quickly walked over to the Uchiha while swallowing another fit of laughter.

She crouched down in front of his head and said,

"Really, Sasuke, I didn't think you were that stupid. To actually get trapped in the dirt. It's just sad. So, would you like so help? Or are you going to continue to be a jerk and try to waste time getting out yourself?"

"Hn."

"I'm sorry, I don't answer to grunts. Would you like my help?" Sakura's voice was sickly sweet.

"…………"

"Okay, I'll take your silence as a no. See ya around Uchiha."

As she turned to walk away, Sasuke finally replied,

"Sakura………help."

"I'm sorry; I failed to hear the 'please' in there."

"……please……help."

With an overdone perky tone the green-eyed girl smiled and said,

"There, that wasn't so hard now was it?"

"Shut up and just help."

Sakura smirked and pulled out the scroll her dad gave to her and acted like she needed it to perform the jutsu.

After purposefully forming the handsigns slowly she finished the jutsu and tapped the ground with two of her fingers. The ground around Sasuke split open and while he was climbing out from the ruble, Sakura started to put her scroll back in her pouch.

Once both were back on their feet, Sakura turned and started to walk away.

"Sakura, where did you learn to do that?" Sasuke asked his female teammate.

Stopping at the sound of her name, Sakura smirked, and without turning she stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world,

"I told you before, I'm not the only shinobi in my family, and my dad teaches me."

With that she kept walking and went back to looking for her sensei. This of course left Sasuke alone. He just let the thought of the pink haired girl be pushed to the back of his mind as he went back to the matter of the bell test and figuring out how to get himself a bell. He was so close last time.

Meanwhile, Sakura was done looking for her sensei the hard way. She went about from tree to tree to keep up her act for the ANBU around her while she did a discreet scan over the area with her chakra.

She could feel the ANBU yet again. There were some around Naruto, which grudgingly she knew was mostly because of the nine-tailed fox demon, some around Uchiha, and…

_'What?! Why are there more ANBU tailing me?!'_

**'Uh…maybe because of that thing earlier, before Sensei showed up and Uchiha was watching us. You know, you kinda threatened him and used a bit too much speed in getting from the ground to him and back. That's just a little bit of a tip off. Catch my sarcasm?'**

_'Well crap! What do I do now?'_

**'Uh…lay low? I don't know!!'**

_'Gee…you're such a help…I might as well act like nothing's happened…can't give them any more reason to be suspicious…'_

With that the green-eyed kunoichi went off towards where she sensed her sensei. She had to finish this test. She sent a bunshin of herself off towards Naruto.

Within minutes, she was in front of Kakashi with a cocky smirk on her face. She knew Naruto was on his way towards them.

Without a word she launched herself at the silver haired jonin. Not a minute later, three Naruto's and three Sakura's were bombarding the man. He actually put his book away. He already learned about Naruto's style, but he knew nothing about Sakura's.

He knew the rosette was smart, and that she took being a shinobi seriously and realistically…but that really didn't say much about her fighting style.

He heard the plan she told Naruto earlier, so when he was blocking the attacks from the clones and a gloved hand shot out from the ground, he was prepared. As it got closer to the bells tied to his hip, he quickly jerked out of the way.

As soon as he was free of any more clones attacking him, he was grabbed and held down by a pair of arms that were too strong for the average genin. As soon as he started to struggle a little, another pair of unusually strong arms grabbed onto him as a pair of hands covered his eye and a different set of hands covered his ears.

One minute later he was completely let go of and saw the two bright-eyed students smiling at him triumphantly while holding up the two bells that they had.

He sighed, and in spite of himself, she smiled under his mask. After all these years, he finally got a student that realized that it was all about teamwork and out of a team consisting of an Uchiha, the next Hokage, and an ordinary girl, the ordinary girl figured out the exercise the third hokage started.

"Well I'm impressed. Out of five years of me giving teams this test, you Sakura, are the first person to figure it out….Not come on."

Obediently the two followed their sensei to the posts facing the memorial rock.

Kakashi turned to the two genin and said, "One moment" and disappeared.

Naruto was rambling his head off to Sakura about how Iruka was going to treat him to ramen and about being hokage while the pinkette herself was thinking about how she was going to keep herself from being noticed by the ANBU anymore.

After about five minutes, Sasuke was tied to the post and glaring at his two teammates. Kakashi was in the middle of lecturing the three about teamwork and pointed out that Sakura had figured it out.

"By the way Sakura, I guess you knew that I could've been listening in on your plan because you still got the bells after I dodged your plan. Did you have a second plan?"

Smirking, Sakura answered her sensei, "I actually knew you would be listening in. Jonins can sense chakra obviously, so I figured if you sensed two of your students hiding and they were there for too long, you'd come and eavesdrop on us. I wrote down the first part of the plan as well as the last part…plus, knowing Naruto he'd forget the whole thing if he didn't have it written down."

Shrugging, the petal-haired girl left it at that.

Naruto was too busy daydreaming about ramen to hear the insulting part of his teammate's explanation, and Kakashi smiled at the girl before him. He never had a student that knew so much about being a ninja before he even taught them anything.

Going on he left them and said that they couldn't give Sasuke any food from their lunches as his punishment for not getting a bell.

As soon as he was gone, Sakura sighed and spoke to her teammates.

"So Sasuke, which one of us do you want to feed you? Obviously you need some lunch, so which one of us is going to feed you?"

"What?" was her response from the raven-haired boy.

Naruto was too shocked to have an answer.

Sighing, Sakura elaborated, "Okay, I'm going to have to break it down for you two. Kakashi-sensei already said this whole exercise is for teamwork. I don't think it's over just yet. So I'll ask one more time. Sasuke, which of us do you want to feed you. I don't think you want to have Naruto feed you, but at the same time I don't think you want me to feed you either…so which is more bearable?"

"………………"

_'Crap…which do I chose?'_

**'SAKURA-CHAN OF COURSE!'**

_'HELLO! I don't care if she's not a fangirl anymore. She was one before, and you never know.'_

**'…WHATEVER!'**

Sakura was getting tired of waiting so she just turned to Naruto and said,

"Why don't you just go ahead and feed him Naruto? You already said you were going to get some ramen with Iruka-sensei. I'm going somewhere with Ino later and we're not getting lunch."

Naruto was dumbfounded. He just asked his teammate,

"Are you kidding me? Weren't you like, one of Teme's fangirls?"

"I _used_ to be one, but not anymore. I'm not going to go around throwing myself at Sasuke when he's obviously not interested."

"Will you two stop talking like I'm not here?!"

The two light-haired ninja's turned towards their teammate and said, "Sorry."

Sakura sighed again and turned to the blonde again, and gave him the look that warned him he would pay if he didn't do what she told him to do and said, "Just feed him."

Naruto grudgingly didn't protest against his teammate anymore.

He looked at his teammate that was tied to the post and said,

"I still hate you Teme! But Sakura-chan will kill me if I don't so let's just get this over with."

Grumbling, Naruto lifted his chopsticks that were holding some rice from the bento he got from his sensei and fed it to Sasuke.

The moment the food was in Sasuke's mouth, clouds surrounded the three genin and Kakashi's voice sounded over them in a threatening tone,

"I told you not to feed him!"

Sakura had a sudden wave of nostalgia at the notion of the past repeating itself. Right down to them all saying that it would be no use to leave their teammate behind.

After the last defiant exclamation about not leaving Sasuke behind, Sakura said what she knew her sensei was going to tell them.

"After all, Sensei, those that don't follow the rules are scum. But those that leave a friend behind are worse than scum."

Kakashi was a little shocked about Sakura using his line, but he was going to go with it none the less.

"Well then. Since you three are so bent on sticking together…you three pass."

Sakura smiled. Yup. Some things just never change.

After they finished their time with their sensei, Team 7 all separated, but not after Sakura quietly set the silver-haired man aside and reminded him of their little meeting with her parents later.

Then the pinkette went off towards the Yamanaka shop.

It was time for them to go shopping.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

"Kakashi-san, we're told to warn you and the other sensei's about-"

"You're warning me about the chakra burst that was sensed the other night. I know. I've been looking into it as well. Do you have any suspicions yet?"

"…We suspect one of your students. We aren't sure which yet, but we think Haruno is most likely the main suspect."

The silver haired elite raised an eyebrow in unbelief at the two ANBU before him.

"Haruno Sakura? Hm…I doubt it from what I've seen. I'll look into it though. You have obviously seen more than I have."

With a nod both ANBU left the silver haired man to his thoughts as they disappeared in a puff of smoke.

_'Strange…hm…Sakura huh, are you really the one to shock us all?'_

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

"HEY INO-PIG! COME ON WE'RE GOING SHOPPING!"

Was heard down the street as the pinkette walked towards the Yamanaka flower shop. The moment Sakura was seen in front of the door, she was yanked in the shop by a perfectly manicured hand.

Green clashed with icy blue as Ino hissed at her best friend,

_"What _do you think you're doing shouting up and down the street?!?!"

A smirk could be seen on the rosette's face as she replied,

"What? It's not like anyone's going to care. Now come on! I need a new outfit and I'm dragging you with me because it's been too long since we did something together _other_ than fight. So go get your cash and let's go."

Unable to resist the urge to go shopping, the blonde left to get her money and tell her parents where they were going.

Soon the two friends were walking through the market looking for the best clothing shop for the two.

Unfortunately for them, they were bombarded by a random guy on the way there that looked them both up and down before saying,

"Hey girls, how about you two join me to go get something to drink? There's a good place a little down the road where we'll be able to be alone."

Sakura was used to this. In the future, people did that kind of thing to her all the time. She didn't take that crap then, and she didn't take it at that moment either. So instead of just being shocked and staring at the guy with an open mouth like Ino, Sakura did what she always did in these cases. She smiled sickeningly sweetly towards the guy, and raised her arm.

_**SLAP!**_

Still with a sickeningly sweet smile and an equally dangerously sweet voice, she said,

"I'm sorry, but we don't deal with that kind of thing. Now, if you don't mind, my friend and I are on our way towards our date with our boyfriends."

The guy just stared—flabbergasted—at the two girls as the green eyed teen dragged her friend off towards their destination.

Once they were out of sight of the guy, the rosette let go of her friend's arm and muttered under her breath, "Stupid disgusting idiot. What does he take us for? Stupid little girls that will fall all over him just because he tried to be cool? Pathetic."

Ino stopped her ranting friend with a single question of how she was able to react like that.

"Simple, I don't take anything from anyone. Remember my glare the other day when all of Sasuke's fangirls tried to get to me? I told you, I had a, um, an epiphany. I'm not the little week crybaby I was before. Now come on! Let's go shopping!"

Sighing, the blue eyed girl followed the pinkette and walked into a clothing shop that supplied for everyone.

They had things from very nice kimonos and cocktail dresses to tank tops and mini-skirts to gothic/punk trench coats and chokers.

Sakura smirked. She scanned the store with her best friend and looked for things she wanted to buy. She saw a million things. She turned to her best friend and almost slipped up by saying "let's do the usual" but she caught herself and said,

"How about we split up for ten minutes and meet in the dressing rooms to try everything on?"

"Sounds like a plan."

With that the girls split up and pillaged the store.

Ten minutes later the two girls each had huge a pile of clothes, accessories, and shoes in their arms. The store owner saw them and nearly fainted. Slowly, the woman walked up to the two girls with a disbelieving look on her face as she asked the two,

"Um…d-do you t-two need any h-help with those? T-those are q-quite the p-piles of c-clothes…a-are you t-t-two sure you can carry t-those? We can g-get workers t-to help y-you."

The girls just looked at each other with blank looks on their faces before turning to the stunned woman and saying,

"No, we're fine. This is nothing really," was the response from the pinkette.

"Yeah, you should see the amount of clothes we have to carry across the village when we empty out our closets every year," continued the blonde.

"Oh I remember last time. I still can't believe you could fit that many clothes in your house Ino! It actually took us four trips to finally get rid of all of your old clothes!"

"Heh-heh…yeah that was a day to remember. Now come on! Didn't you say earlier that you had to meet with your sensei after we were done! I can't have you bailing out on me before we're done!" the Yamanaka responded.

**(****A/N****: I know they weren't friends then as far as the story goes, but let's just say that the parents made them work together because the moms are friends with each other.)**

With that the two girls left the gawking store owner and attacked the dressing rooms. Each of them went in, and then came out in different outfits. They laughed as they messed around with horrible combinations (which they always fixed up with the help of the other), amazing outfits that would make boys drool (the little nasties XD), and outfits that were perfect for them.

In the end, each girl paid for seven shirts, three pairs of shorts, three pairs of pants, six pairs of shoes, and too many accessories to count. Smiling, after they paid the girls each changed into the outfits they liked best and were going to wear the most.

Ino wore a light blue top with a crimson red rose on it, a pair of blue skinny jeans that slightly flared out from the knee down, and shoes that were blue sandals this slightly raised heals that were commonly worn among kunoichi.

Sakura had her new ninja outfit and she was thoroughly in love with. She had her hitai-ate on her forehead—it honestly looked better there—she had a netted T-shirt on underneath a black tank-top that had a red circle in the middle of it. She also had a pair of shorts that stopped barely above her knees that were layered; the top half that went from her waist to her mid-thigh was red while the rest of the material was black. She had black armored finger-less gloves that extended to her elbows and had a red dragon twisting all around it.

Her favorite part of the outfit though, was the pair of platform boots that she was wearing. They stopped just bellow knees and were black like the majority of her outfit. It had leather straps that climbed up the front of the boots causing it to have a pattern of X's from the ankle to just below the top of the sturdy material.

The whole thing gave her the look and feel of "I'm nice, but don't get on my bad side because you **will** regret it."

Ino didn't know why, but she felt that the look fit the pinkette. Once someone got to know Sakura, they realized that she could kick your ass without a second thought if you truly pissed her off. She just usually kept it all held in.

_'How is it that I never noticed this in her before? She was always so quiet and held everything in…she really just kind of opened up more the other day ago.'_

Then it clicked in the blue-eyed girl's mind.

Sakura's "epiphany" was pretty much her being more open about how she felt. Usually she just put on a fake smile and held in her anger or sadness. Then, when they were still friends anyway, she would let it out on Ino.

Smiling at how Sakura was more open now, the blonde kept up easily with her bustling friend among the village streets on the way back to their houses.

"So Ino-pig, how's being on a team with Shikamaru and Chouji so far?"

"Oh! They are so _annoying_! It's like they purposely do things to bug me to death!"

"Oh come on, they can't be that bad! Sasuke and Naruto never stop bickering! You know how they wouldn't stop arguing in the academy that one day and I tried to stop the fight?"

"Yeah, then you literally threw the two of them apart from each other because they completely ignored you and kept bickering."

"Yeah, now try to deal with that practically every minute they're together! I've only spent one training session with them and they couldn't stop bothering each other! Even when they were away from each other!"

The two kept on talking as they walked through the streets. All too soon they ended up at the Yamanaka shop since it was closer to the market than Sakura's house was. The two parted ways and the pinkette was left to walk home from there.

As soon as she walked into her house she was hugged by her mother. Smiling, the green-eyed girl dropped her shopping bags and hugged her mom back.

Once the elder Haruno woman let go of her daughter, she looked her up and down, scrutinizing her child's new look.

With a nod of acceptance the red-haired woman told her green-eyed daughter,

"I like the outfit. A bit too much black for my taste…but it looks good on you. I really like the boots too! I haven't seen platform boots in forever!"

Laughing lightly the pinkette shook her head at her hazel-eyed mother's antics.

"Well they're not that much of platform boots. The ones you're used to are all practically five inches high. These are only about and inch and a half."

Rolling her eyes at her daughter, she helped Sakura out with bringing her shopping bags to her room. Once they got there they dumped the bags on the floor Sakura remembered what she meant to ask her parents.

"Hey, Mom…can I have that old desk in our office room that no one uses?"

"Sure honey. I'll tell your dad to move it for you."

"Uh…well…never mind. I'll tell you later when Kakashi-sensei shows up."

The two Haruno women walked back down the stairs to see her father walking through the front door of the house clad in his ANBU uniform. The Haruno matriarch effectively freaked out obviously not knowing that her daughter already was aware of her father's status in the shinobi world.

"Hello Yuuka, Sakura, how are you two?"

"Daiki! What are you doing?!" the elder Haruno woman exclaimed while gesturing back and forth between his uniform and her daughter that was standing in front of her.

"Mom, calm down. I already know about Dad being an ANBU in the village," the calm girl said.

"Oh…when did you find out, Sakura."

Shrugging, the petite girl said, "I'll be able to explain it better when Kakashi-sensei shows up."

After exchanging a look, the girl's parents decided not to press any farther into the matter.

Sakura's dad, Daiki, went up the stairs with the intent of changing and getting a shower. Meanwhile the green-eyed girl went into their kitchen to make some hot tea for the family and Kakashi whom was supposed to be showing up at the Haruno residence soon.

About fifteen minutes later, the brown-haired Haruno patriarch was done with his shower and was changed in a nice, but not formal outfit. Sakura's mom, Yuuka, was straightening everything up around the already spotless house, and a knock was heard at the door.

The two adults froze in anticipation. Yuuka because of the fact that she knew Kakashi was a famous Konoha shinobi. Daiki because of the fact that he deeply respected the former ANBU that was going to be in his house. Kakashi was a hero to the village and extremely strong.

Sakura, who knew the most about the man, was the only one that wasn't affected by the fact that Kakashi was at their door. Quite the contrary, she was smiling as though a long time friend of hers just showed up to her doorstep rather than her well respected sensei. She left her fingerless gloves on the counter and moved to the door.

She opened the door to see the masked silver haired man in front of her. Her smile grew as she opened the door wider and invited him in. He walked in, took off his shoes, and walked over to the living room where his student's parents were.

He sat on the empty couch in the room that was set up so that there were two couches facing each other with a table in the middle and an armchair that was on the far side of the room that was between the ends of the couches.

**(****A/N****: yeah…sorry if you can't understand that…it sounds better in my head than it does written down…. XP)**

Sakura got the tea that was done and brought it into the room and gave each of the adults a cup full of her sweet apple tea.

She sat in the armchair and smiled playing the part of the hostess.

"Well, I know you're all wondering what I'm up to…and I well, I have to tell you three something, but I don't think any of you will believe me unless I give you substantial proof."

Her parents were taken aback by their daughter's bluntness. This was definitely not the little girl they were used to.

Kakashi on the other hand, just blinked and said,

"Elaborate for me. What makes you so sure we won't believe you and why are you so set on telling me? I understand you telling your parents, but I just became your official sensei this morning."

Smiling at the unanimous confusion in the adults', the pinkette answered the silver haired twenty-five year old,

"Well, Kakashi-sensei…Mom, Dad……I'm um…from the future. Yeah I know it sounds like the sci-fi crap from movies and books, but I'm serious, I used a jutsu that took me back in time."

The pinkette looked at all of them and saw incredulous faces. She sighed.

"I told you I'd have to show you proof before you would believe me. Now let's see…Mom, how much about the shinobi world do you know?"

The red-headed woman blinked and said,

"Depends, I know about the differences in taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu…and a little bit about how being a medic-nin is supposed to be really hard to be because it takes a lot of control and it was too hard for your father to learn."

Smirking, she turned to her sensei and asked him for a kunai. He complied with an amusedly curious look in his eye.

"Well then…"

She took the knife and slashed it across her arm, thus creating a deep, clean gash on her arm that was threatening to drip on the ground.

Sakura smirked as Kakashi's visible eye widened, her father paled and froze—Sakura could've sworn he was going to faint, but he didn't—and her mother nearly hyperventilated.

She put down the kunai and almost purposely slowly brought her hand to the oozing wound. She held it just above the gash and automatically fell into her routine that she was so familiar with. She felt her chakra center to her hand and let it seep into her wound as it repaired her skin and replace her lost blood.

She finished her work by rubbing the blood off of her arm using a towel from the tray of tea she brought out and looked up to give them a cocky smirk and said,

"Now do you believe me?"

Kakashi swallowed before inwardly scolding himself for showing so much shock. He looked the pinkette in the eye and said, "I need more proof before I'll believe you. How do I know that you didn't have someone teach you that or that you looked it up in a book or a scroll."

The green-eyed girl sighed…then thought for a second. Then she smiled.

Sakura bit her thumb to the point that it started to bleed lightly, and she formed the hand signs so quickly that Kakashi barely could see them.

With that she slammed her right hand on the ground. Summon kanji's were scattered on the ground and a large slug appeared in a puff of smoke.

Kakashi froze and paled. Daiki muttered under his breathe, "Oh my Kami."

Yuuka on the other hand, was more dramatic. She jumped to the back of her couch and screamed, "GET IT OUT OF MY HOUSE! GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT!"

The pinkette looked at her dad pleadingly. He went to go calm down his wife while his daughter spoke to the slug.

"Hello Katsuyu. It's been a long time since I've been able to summon you without there being a direct threat."

The slug turned its attention right on the petal haired kunoichi and said in its gentle voice,

"Yes it has Sakura-hime. But why are you so young right now? Tsunade-hime can't have already taught you her technique."

Sakura smiled as though she were remembering an inside joke.

"No, she hasn't taught me that technique yet. I take it she hasn't informed you about the whole ordeal."

"Are you talking about the jutsu you two used to go back in time?"

"Yes, I am."

"She told me a little about it, not very much though. She seemed to be in a hurry."

This got the pinkette's overly active brain thinking, but she stopped and pushed the thoughts to the side.

"Well, we both were at our breaking points, I already memorized the jutsu, and Shishou agreed. Now here we are. We're going to be doing a lot of changing. There's no way we're letting it happen again."

The slug nodded in understanding. Sakura stared off ahead of her with a look in her eyes that had seen more than most ANBU would ever even dream of seeing. The green pools seemed was too aged for the twelve year old.

That was finally proved it for the two men in the room. They were trained to be skeptical of all things, but even they couldn't be skeptical about that look.

Kakashi took a deep breath and said,

"What else is there that you want to tell us? We believe you're from the future, but why is it that we all had to know."

The pinkette took her cup of tea and took a long sip from it before turning back into the hostess and addressing all of them in an almost tired tone.

"Well, there're a lot of things you all need to know."

Apprehensive and still eyeing the slug that took a place on her daughter's lap, Yuuka said,

"What kind of things?"

Laughing nervously she replied,

"Like um, I'm really good at losing my temper, and then using the inhuman strength that Tsunade-shishou taught me."

Shocked, both the brown haired and silver haired men said,

"Wait, Tsunade-sama trained you?!?!"

Blinking, Sakura realized her mistake: forgetting to break everything down for them for the men _(HELLO! an ANBU and an ex-ANBU that were both surrounded by more men than women and the women were almost always medic-nin that had to hold back and act useless)_ and her mom _(a.k.a. challenged in all things ninja)_.

She took a deep breath.

"Okay. I'll put it simply: in the future, Tsunade-shishou trains me and becomes a lot like a mother to me—Mom don't get upset, I'll explain that later—and she trains me in all of the things she knows. Meaning her medical abilities, inhuman strength, quick temper, and her analyzing skills have all been taught to me. I was her apprentice so to speak."

Katsuyu had been quiet up until that point.

"Actually, Sakura-hime surpassed Tsunade-hime in everything. I watched both of them grow as kunoichi."

Kakashi looked at the slug and said,

"I don't understand how you could've done that if they went back in time. You shouldn't remember any of it because technically it hasn't happened yet."

"Time runs differently and unchangingly on Yomistotan."

"Yomistotan?" was the resounding reply from the adults.

Answering for the slug, Sakura said,

"It's the mountain that all slugs like Katsuyu live when they aren't summoned. Like Myobokuzan is the mountain that toads all live on."

The adults registered that in their minds as the pinkette continued.

"Well, along with Shishou training me, a lot of other things happen in the future. Things that _can't_ happen again; like the Third Hokage dyeing."

"WHAT!?!?!"

"Yeah Dad, the Third died. Orochimaru killed him after invading the Chuunin exams." The green-eyed girl looked at the silver haired man with the aged look in her eyes again as she went on, "That snake also gave Sasuke the curse mark. He wants his body so that he can stay immortal and have the sharingan. Uchiha left the village because of that and he was so damn stuck on revenge he didn't see that it was all just a set up for Orochimaru to get power."

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, the pinkette turned back as the center, equally between her parents and her sensei.

"All of this and on top of an organization that calls itself the Akatsuki is after the tailed beasts and will be coming after Naruto. If they get him, we're all doomed. The future is not bright for Konoha. Like it was pointed out earlier, I came back for a reason."

The brown haired man spoke up saying,

"We died didn't we? You already said Tsunade-sama became a mother-figure to you."

Sakura looked at the ground and said,

"Yeah, you guys died when Orochimaru attacked the village during the chuunin exams."

A heavy silence rested on the room. Kakashi broke the quiet by saying,

"So when is Tsunade-sama coming to Konoha?"

She looked at her sensei and said, "As soon as she can."

Nodding his head Kakashi asked if there was anything else that they needed to know.

"Not that I can think of at the moment. However, I know that there were ANBU watching the people in the village because of the burst of chakra that was too big for comfort. That was because of me. I need to be the one to let the Third Hokage know though, and that has to wait until Tsunade-shishou gets here."

Daiki spoke up immediately after she said that, "Why do you want us to wait and why does it have to only be you?"

"Because it'll be easier to explain, and it'll seem less like I was trying to hide things if I were to explain it. Not to mention it was by the orders of Tsunade-shishou, the Fifth Hokage, that I keep everyone's mouths shut as well as mine until she shows up."

He took that as his answer. Disloyalty was definitely something that was never acceptable for the man, and it took him a moment to realize that his daughter was doing all of this out of loyalty for his village.

Like father like daughter.

They all sat there, had their tea and discussed things about how they were going to do everything and what was to be done about keeping it a secret with the ANBU watching them and so on.

It was already really late when they were all done discussing things and Kakashi went home, Sakura had moved the desk from the office room to her room and was getting ready for the next day. She had everything planned out. Now all she really needed was a nice hot shower and some rest.

She finished everything and went to bed. The pinkette rested her head on her pillow and kept her mind open to simple thoughts as she let sleep take over herself. The rest of their problems would have to wait.

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**A/N****: I AM SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG TO UPDATE! I MADE SURE THIS WAS LONG BEFORE I UPDATED TO MAKE UP FOR IT! I'M SORRY! I'M SO SORRY!**

**By the way, for all those that are reading Cherry Blossom in Pain, REVIEW AND I'LL UPDATE! I finally updated it and only 1 person that already had me on their alerts reviewed! IT'S SICKENING! So if you want another chapter REVIEW!**

**I'll try to get the next chappy up soon, but I've got a stupid head cold and exams to study for. -.-" it'll be better if school's out though so yeah.**

Affectionate: Hehe…oops…. lol. My bad. Thank you for reviewing! ^_^ I'm glad you like it so far! Again, I AM SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG FOR UPDATING! T.T plz don't be too mad!

Inteme-Diamond: Indi-chan, you have got to be one of my favorite reviewers. I'm not joking. Your review made me laugh and smile. I'm so glad I have readers like you. Lol, its okay about the outfits. I'm not exactly fashion coordinated either XD. Anyway thank you so much for your review! I'm sorry for taking so long! I made it extra long just for you though! ^_~ p.s. FREE PIE FOR YOUR AWESOME REVIEW! ^_^

DanichT02: I'm sorry I didn't use your outfit! T.T Please don't feel bad! I'm trying to get a picture of it out of my friend, and when I do I promise to send you the link for it! I feel really guilty…I promise I'll put that in one of the chapters! Let's just say they went to the Land of Waves and it got bloody from taking care of Sasuke-teme! ^_~ always gotta have a back up! I'm glad you liked the last chappy! I'M SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING SOONER! I made it long though! Lol. Thanks again Dani-chan! 3

Koo2Koo1Ka2choo1: I LOVE YOUR REVIEW! It is probably the one that made me the most motivated ^_~. Lol. AWW thanks I know I'm your favorite authoress ;) lol. I'm glad the last chappy helped make your week better! Of course I had to make Sakura the awesomest kunoichi ever! Sakura's just awesome like that! She also has to have her friends though! Hehe! Ino and Sakura had to go shopping! Thanks for the input for the outfit too! I'm sorry for taking so long to review! T-T I made it long! Lol. Thanks though. ^_^

insaneanimelover: thank you for not killing me for taking so long! Your wrath is by far scarier than Sakura's, Tsunade's and Hinata's evil side put together! So I'll say this now: I'M SO FRIGGIN SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING SOONER AND I'M GLAD YOU DIDN'T KILL ME! Okay! That's outa my system! Thanks for your help on her outfit too! You personally RiRi-chan are the most eh…motivational person out of all of us. ^_~ lol. I promise to TRY to get the next chappy out soon.

sakura-hime-cha: Thank you! I'm glad you saw this as a really good fanfic! I love getting your type of reviews! I TRIED TO UPDATE SOONER I SWEAR I DID! AND I'M SORRY FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO! T.T I hope you can forgive me! Really though, thank you for your review! ^_^

XxXMiss'TeaseXxX: Thank you for your review! Of course I had to put Evanescence in there! I just can't go without putting Evanescence in there! They're just the best band in the world! I TRIED! I'M SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING SOONER! I PROMISE TO HURRY WITH THE NEXT CHAPTER! PLEASE DON'T BE MAD! Still thank you for your review! ^_^

lillydanvic: Thank you. I'm glad you liked it! I hope you don't mind the long wait for the chappy! T.T I tried to update sooner!

kunoichixakura: I owe you an apology. I didn't update nearly fast enough! Thank you for your suggestion! I'm shocked at how many people sent in ideas! I'm glad you liked the last chappy though! Thank you so much for your reviews!

xsausaku4everx: Hehe! Thank you for your review! I'm glad you liked it! I love having Sasuke in denial! It's fun to write! Thank you for your compliments! I'm so sorry it took me so long to update! I feel bad because you complimented me so much! T-T I should've updated sooner! I'm sorry. I'm glad you like this story though!

IshimaruTsubaki: Thank you for your reviews! I'm really glad you like my story! ^_^ Thanks for your suggestion for her outfit! I'm sorry I didn't use it though. Please don't feel bad. I'm really glad you like my story. ^_~

Gaara44: I'm so glad you like it! I'm sorry for not being able to update sooner! I'm so sorry for keeping you waiting!

REDandBLACKlunarwolf: Why are you sorry? I'm the one that should be sorry! I took forever to update! I hope you like this chappy! Thank you for your review! ^_^

shadow-binder: Thank you for your review! ^_^ I'm glad you like my story! ^_^ I hope I didn't take too long for your liking. ^_^" Heh-heh…don't worry about the outfit. I got it one way or another ^_~ btw, nice avatar. Kiba is my favorite character out of all the guys in Naruto.

HPMagicLuvr: Thank you! I'm glad you like it! I hope this chappy was long enough too! ^_^ Thank you for your review too! ^_^

**THERE! I UPDATED! NOW I'M GONNA GO START WORKING ON THE NEXT CHAPTER BEFORE I END UP DOING THIS AGAIN!**

**~Ja Ne**

**~~Your favorite authoress ^_~**

**~~~~CGWG**


	5. a new day, and changed plans

**A/N:** **Ok…I'm sorry first of all. I should've updated sooner. I am sooo sorry for taking so long to update anymore. But it's like summer hit and the inspiration died. I've been drawing more than I've been writing. I am sooo sorry! I hope you guys can forgive me……dang it I told myself I wasn't going to do this…but you guys are worth it. (At least those of you that actually read this.) I BEG OF YOU TO PLEASE FORGIVE ME FOR THE IMPOSSIBLY LONG WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!**

**Ok. I'm calm. Even still I'm sorry. I really am. Now I'm going to do something I really hate to do. I'm sure everyone does.**

**Disclaimer:**** CURSE YOU PEOPLE! HOW DARE YOU STOOP SO LOW! To threaten me with lawyers of doom to get me to say this! Cruel! T.T ok…I'll say it! I…don't…own Naruto or any of the songs I might put in here!!! There! Stupid lawyers can go away until I'm ready to update again.**

**ON WITH THE STORY!**

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Sakura awoke with a start. That was rare so she was immediately on her guard. She slipped out of bed and grabbed a kunai. She couldn't feel any abnormal presences in the house and became confused.

Slowly, she walked down the stairs and looked around. From the living room she found the source of what woke her.

"I thought she got rid of you!!!!"

"MOM! Respect Katsuyu! She can spit acid that will melt your face off!" the pinkette yelled at her mother.

She forgot to reverse summon the slug. She was shocked that the summon animal just stayed on the chair and didn't say a thing about being left there.

Turning to the slug in question, Sakura humbly said,

"I'm so sorry Katsuyu! I wish you would've let me know that I had left you there! I would've let you go back to your mountain or at least stay in my room rather than be left out here all night!"

With a few exchanged words between the two, Sakura reverse summoned Katsuyu.

The pink haired Haruno matriarch was stunned. Her daughter was completely different. Not even three days ago she would've screamed at the thought of any bugs or creatures of the sort to be anywhere near her, let alone talking to one like it was a well respected Lord.

_'I guess I'll really have to accept the fact that my little baby is grown up beyond even my years; being from the future and all…oh yeah…the future. That reminds me…'_

"Sakura, sweetheart…about last night…"

The green-eyed girl looked at her mother and smiled softly, "Yeah Mom?"

"Young lady you gave me quite the scare with that stunt on your arm. Don't you dare do that to yourself ever again! I don't care if you can heal it right after, if I ever see you do that again—ninja or not—I'll skin you alive."

Sakura sweat-dropped at her mother's antics. She knew it was because she cared so she just smiled knowingly at her mother and said, "Hai, hai, I know Okaa-san. Gomenasai."

Knowing that Sakura only ever spoke like that when she truly meant it and truly was sorry, Yuuka just smiled at her daughter, she really had grown up.

But she also knew, even though she didn't really want to admit it, that her daughter could take care of herself far better than her own mother ever could. The girl was, after all, a product of herself and Daiki. Plus knowing things she and her father didn't even know made her even more prepared for the world. It was a comforting yet saddening thought for the woman. After all, moms will be moms.

Shaking her head Yuuka said, "Okay. Now go up and change. I'll make you some breakfast. You still have a couple of hours of time before you have to go meet up with your teammates."

Smiling and nodding, Sakura did as she was told just to come down stairs a few minutes later fully clothed in the outfit she wore the day before except her gloves were missing.

Before the green-eyed girl could even ask her mom about them, they were held out to her along with a plate of pancakes her mother had made a bit earlier.

"Thank you Mom." Was all the mini-rosette said before she got to work on the pancakes that she had been given. Her mom knew exactly how she liked them. Covered in peanut butter, syrup, and powdered sugar. Yum. **(A/N: believe it or not that's actually really tasty.)**

After she was done inhaling her breakfast, Daiki came down stairs.

"Now that's going to take some getting used to. To come down stairs and see my two favorite women both up and smiling. But I guess I can get used to it."

With a smile on his face that screamed '_I'm going to have fun today because I'm on my day off'_', the brunette sat down by his daughter and was given his plate of pancakes. Sure enough it was fixed up the same way his daughter had hers minus the powdered sugar. That was his wife's thing.

He too inhaled his breakfast and turned to his daughter saying something out of the blue.

"Well, pretty soon I'm going to be challenging you to sparing matches to test how strong you're getting. I guess-"

Sakura cut off her father saying, "Don't worry Daddy, I'll go easy on you. There's no way I could damage your ego by beating you. Not yet anyway."

She ended that with a wink and a sly smile. Then she got up and washed the dishes she used.

"Oh really? Are you sure you're not just saying that to be cocky? You are, after all, just a genin."

The only thing that could be heard in the kitchen for a good three minutes was the girl's laughter. After she calmed down, Sakura put on an impish smile and said,

"May I remind you, Dad, I surpassed Tsunade-shishou in the future. The only thing that changed from then and now is my body. I still have the chakra, the brain, and the skills. Maybe minus a bit of flexibility and speed. But that can be easily fixed with training."

With another wink she finished with her dishes and walked back up the stairs.

Her parents looked at each other with astonishment.

"She really did change. I wonder if it really is all just Tsunade-sama's personality in her, or if other things happened to make her like that," Daiki told his wife.

"I'm not too sure how much I like it though. We'll have to see when the woman comes to town. There's no way she's going to be able to _not_ come see us. After all, it is _our_ baby we're talking about here." Yuuka said with a bit more force than was necessary.

Daiki knew that tone of voice. He knew it all too well. He hadn't heard it in a long time, but he would know that tone anywhere.

"Are you jealous?"

"No! That's absurd. Why would I be jealous that some stranger suddenly took my spot in my little girl's heart!? No! I'm not jealous."

Sighing, Daiki's tone softened as he said, "Just be glad she wasn't alone. She had someone there for her when we weren't. She took care of our baby. You know better than I, that there's no way Sakura could let someone take the place of her own mother. She didn't take your place. She earned her own place in our girl's heart."

With that he went upstairs and left his wife to think.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

BANG! _CRASH!_ _**BOOM!**_

Daiki hesitated at his daughter's door then knocked saying in a worried tone, "Sakura…are you okay?"

"Yeah Dad, I'm fine. Come on in."

In came the brunette man and he saw a much destroyed alarm clock on the ground, a suspicious looking new poster on the wall above it, and his old office desk that he didn't use anymore by the window.

Pointing at the clock he said, "Do I want to know?"

Pausing a moment to contemplate, Sakura answered, "Um…I think you already do because of mom. I still don't like mornings. Add inhuman strength and you get that."

Chuckling softly at his daughter's sheepish face the Haruno patriarch said, "Well, I know you have another hour until you have to go to training with your team, so do you want to go out and train in the backyard? Show me a bit of your skills?"

Smirking confidently Sakura was about to answer her father and then faltered. Daiki noticed this and questioned his daughter on why she hesitated.

"Well, it's just that, I don't think I should."

"Why not? It looked like you were about to accept."

"I do random chakra scans around me and while you offered I was in the middle of one and I just realized that I've got five ANBU watching me and looking for anything suspicious that's going on between the new rookies. Suddenly getting in an intense battle with you and likely winning then healing you isn't exactly what I'd call normal. I'm supposed to lie low, remember? Just wait until Tsunade-shishou comes to town and picks me as her apprentice, and then I'll be able to kick your butt without the suspiciousness."

The brunette pursed his lips and said, "Well that just bites. Why are they looking at the rookies?"

Slightly shocked the green-eyed girl said, "I thought you knew! They put ANBU after us because when I did my jutsu to get back to this time, I kinda had to exert a HUGE chakra burst and now a bunch of ANBU are very suspicious of the rookies because it happened just before graduation day for us, and what better place for a threat to hide than in the rookies?"

"…You scare me."

"I'm glad."

"Yup, you are the product of me and your mother."

-Smirk- "You bet."

With that the two Haruno shinobi went down stairs and Sakura left the house. She wanted some early "training" in before she met up with her teammates.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

"NARUTO! SASUKE! JUST SHUT UP ALREADY!!!"

Yeah, that was our favorite green-eyed girl yelling at her two favorite teammates while they were—for the millionth time—arguing with each other. And you guessed it! Kakashi was late as always. And sadly…Sakura did show up late trying to avoid this. Unfortunately, it wasn't late enough.

Of course the two boys were staring at Sakura like she just sprouted another head. She was glaring at them while trying to get rid of her headache.

"For crying out loud! You two bicker like an old married couple! Just kiss and make up already!!!! At least then you two won't be giving me such a horrible headache!!!"

Standing up and ignoring the obvious protests from the two boys the pinkette went off and jumped up into a tree with a last comment to the two boys.

"Kiss and make up! You know you want to! Don't let yourself hang in denial!"

**'Is it just me or is it fun to mess with them like that?'**

_'Trust me…it's not just you. Remember when Ten-chan would come and help us torture Naruto? In exchange we messed with Neji. Good times.'_

Unfortunately though, Sakura's reminiscing was cut short as Kakashi poofed into view saying, "She has a point you know. Denial just hurts you more."

Both boys continued denying being gay and Sakura came down from her tree. Putting her arms around Naruto's and Sasuke's shoulders she said, "Well, now that I think about it, they might not be."

Playing along with his unique student, Kakashi said, "Oh? And how is that Sakura?"

Putting on the innocent yet thoughtful face Sakura said in a sickly innocent voice, "Well, Naruto here –_insert her punching his head like normal_- peeps on the girl's bath house. So he's an obvious pervert when it comes to girls."

Then turning to Sasuke she continued in a sickeningly sweet voice, "And Sasuke here, -_smirk_- wants to restore his clan. Obviously he has to do that with a girl, so he's a closet pervert!"

She then looked at the males on her team and saw each of their faces. Sasuke was disgusted, Naruto in between disgusted and ready to laugh, and Kakashi was resisting the urge to fall to the ground with his laughing. She lost it. The time-traveling girl fell over with side-splitting laughter.

"Look-laugh-at your-wheeze-FACES!!!"

The boys looked at each other and the silver-haired jonin let out chuckles of amusement and Naruto's face slowly stretched into a grin and started laughing as well. Sasuke was looking at his teammates and couldn't help but let out a small chuckle.

**(****A/N:**** DON'T KILL ME FOR THAT! WHEN SASUKE WAS YOUNGER AND IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY HE WASN'T AS EMOTIONLESS AS HE IS IN SHIPUDEN! DON'T KILL ME PLEASE!)**

Eventually everyone calmed down and they all went to training. It was just the basics: aim practice, stamina, flexibility, ECT.

At the end of the training session Kakashi made a few announcements.

"Well, good job today you all did really well. I'll let you all know that tomorrow will be our fist mission together as a team. Don't be late."

Scoffing, Sasuke said, "Speak for yourself."

Ignoring the comment, Kakashi continued. "Also. Sakura, you said your father was an ANBU right?"

Taken aback by the randomness of her teacher, she asked him, "Yeah, what of it?"

"I wanted to know if you father trains you."

"When he's home and not exhausted yeah."

"Good. I know you won't be left behind then if I spend a bit more time with Sasuke and Naruto then."

Smirking and seeing what he was implying with that, the pinkette confidently said, "Oh don't even worry about that. I'm probably stronger than them anyway. My dad's not exactly a wimp, and he does not go easy when he trains me."

"Good. That's all. I'll see you three tomorrow at the bridge at 7 o' clock sharp."

With that he was gone in a cloud of smoke.

Naruto looked at the pinkette and asked, "How come you never show us what your dad teaches you? You said once before that your dad was an ANBU and that he teaches you, but you never act like you've ever learned anything new."

Sakura looked at the blonde boy in astonishment. "Holy crap Naruto! You actually remembered something that didn't involve ramen? Is this the end of the world as we know it?"

"Heeeey! I remember my training! What kind of a ninja would I be if I didn't remember it?"

"Naruto…you do know that I was just messing with you…right?"

"Tch. Dobe," Sasuke surprisingly actually stayed there while his two teammates talked. Finally he said his infamous statement that immediately causes an argument.

Before Naruto could even retort though, Sakura cut in, "Sasuke…is there a reason why you always say that even though it only ever starts a pointless argument?"

Naruto looked at the green-eyed girl with a blank look. Sasuke however, (for once in his life) had something to say about that.

"I don't start the arguments. The Dobe just comes back yelling at me."

Sakura asked him, "Well why say it if you know he's going to come back yelling at you? I wasn't kidding when I said that you two bicker like an old married couple. Why not just save us from the argument and the headache?"

No comment from either boy. Sakura sighed. She wondered why she even bothered. Shrugging off the pointless matter, she changed the topic.

"Okay. Whatever. Who wants to go to Ichiraku's for lunch? Ramen doesn't sound too bad right now."

Naruto obviously answered, "YEAH! RAMEN! And Teme's buying!"

"Not a chance Dobe. You're paying," Sasuke said in his own little way of saying that he was going to come with them. He had a few things he wanted to ask Sakura.

Sakura, keeping another argument from starting, said, "We can all pay for ourselves. Naruto, I'm not bailing you out if you eat more than you can pay for. You're on your own if you do."

Nodding, Naruto tried to keep that in mind.

On the way to the ramen stand they found themselves in a light and enjoyable conversation. Well….mostly it was Naruto and Sakura talking with Sasuke adding in a few small antagonistic comments now and again. When they arrived at the famous ramen shop they were surprised by who they saw there.

"IRUKA-SENSEI!!!! Long time no see!" was heard from the hyperactive blonde as he saw the academy teacher.

Having the heads up of the loudmouth's shout, the brunette turned in time to keep himself from toppling over with Naruto's glomp.

Shaking her head, Sakura helped pry the number one hyperactive knucklehead ninja off of the kind man. "Hello Iruka-sensei."

"Hey Naruto, Sakura," the brown-eyed chuunin said and turned to the young Uchiha that had walked up without a word. "Hello to you too Sasuke. You know, I was worried that you all would end up killing each other by now. I'm glad to see that you three can work together as a team."

With his famous foxy grin Naruto said, "Oh come on Iruka! Sasuke may act all emo and everything, but he's not a psycho killer. Even I know that!"

Rolling her eyes and hitting him upside the head—like always—Sakura continued on, "Well…for the most part, we do work pretty well together. The only problem is, Kaka-sensei constantly tells us to meet up really early and then is two hours late. While we're waiting I usually have to stop all the fights these two get into. I swear they bicker like an old married couple."

Laughing, Iruka said, "Oh come on. I know they can get bad, but they can't be **that **bad. By the way I'm paying. So order whatever you like."

"YEAH!!!! FREE RAMEN!!!!!!! I'll have a bowl of misu ramen!" exclaimed the rambunctious blue-eyed boy.

_'Oh boy, here we go __**again**__,'_ thought Sakura.

"Tch. Dobe."

"Shut up Teme!"

"Idiot."

"Emo!"

"Dead last"

"Antisocial"

"Stupid"

"Gay!"

"You wish, homo."

"Why? Because you think you're just so pretty?"

"No, because you obviously wish you could be me."

"Ha! Only in your dreams. You wish you had awesome skills like mine!"

"What skills? You can barely even throw a kunai."

On went the insults. Sakura shook her head. Naruto was so caught up in all the arguing that he didn't realize his misu ramen was getting cold and Sakura just turned from her ramen to talk to Iruka.

"See? I told you they bicker like an old married couple. Anyway, how have you been?"

He turned to the girl and finally fully took in her appearance. She was a lot different from the girl he had in his class less than a week ago, "Oh not much. The new academy students don't come in for another few months so I'm on more missions than before. How have you been though. You seem a lot different from the girl that was in my class less than a week ago."

Smiling at him she said, "Oh well I'm glad you can get out more. As for me…let's just call it a little epiphany that I had. That and now my dad's training me so I take things a lot more seriously now. He didn't think I was going to stick with being a shinobi so he never told me that he was an ANBU. But seeing as I've stuck with it and Kakashi-sensei is training me, he decided to let me know and is now training me."

Going with that, Iruka said, "Oh that's great. Now I don't have to sit here and act like your dad's a normal civilian. He's quite the amazing shinobi you know. You could learn a lot from him."

Smiling happily, Sakura said in her normal bubbly tone, "Oh I know. And I'm going to try and get really strong. I want to make my dad proud. And…um…I kind of have this…um…feeling…that something big is going to happen."

Raising an eyebrow at the rosette in front of him, he asked her, "Oh? What kind of something?"

Biting her lip while she found the right words, she continued, "Well, I don't really know. But it's a good thing…I think. It might be both good and bad. But mostly good. Either way, I just have this feeling that I have to watch out for it. If I don't I think I'm going to miss out on a big opportunity for me."

Patting the perplexed girl's shoulder, the sensei said, "Well, do just that. Be on the lookout for something big. And once it shows up, take advantage of it. You never know how long something it going to last so you'll have to take advantage of what you've got while you've got it.

"You're right. Thanks"

"TEME! THAT'S IT! TAKE THIS!" could be heard across the village as Naruto took his now cold ramen and dumped it on Sasuke.

Everyone froze. Even Ayame and her father. Almost a minute passed before anyone did anything. Unfortunately, Sasuke was the one to unfreeze first.

"NARUTO!!!!!"

No one in the village will ever forget exactly what happened next.

Naruto turned and tried to run for it, Sakura and Iruka tried to reason with Sasuke, and the Uchiha was trying to get Naruto to strangle him. In the midst of the chaos, Sakura and her inner were having a panic attack.

_'What do we do? We can't just let him kill Naruto! We're not allowed to heal him afterward!'_

**'I don't know! Just DO SOMETHING!'**

_'WHAT?!?!?!'_

After about a full minute of struggling with the enraged Uchiha, Sakura finally snapped.

"SASUKE! STOP! IS HE REALLY WORTH IT?"

This did nothing to snap the teen out of it so Sakura gave up on whether or not it was worth it and decided to bring up something she never wanted to bring up with Sasuke again this soon.

"How are you supposed to be able to kill him if you can't even control yourself enough to think straight?"

Who knows how, but something in her words made him stop struggling. He still had a clouded over look of anger, but he was fighting to gain control of his thoughts.

Sakura hardly paid any attention to that and kept going, "You of all people should know that when you let your thoughts cloud over you just caused yourself a lost battle! Now snap out of it and get a hold of yourself!"

Iruka, who had stopped trying to hold Sasuke back the moment he stopped struggling, was shocked. He stared at the green-eyed girl with astonishment. What happened to the little fangirl she used to be? Not that he enjoyed it or anything, but still. For her to change this much in less than a week was just too much. The old Sakura would have tried to help clean up Sasuke, try to go after Naruto for what he did, or cower in a corner afraid of Sasuke's rage. Not fight against him and bring up that topic. Who was she?

Sasuke was also looking at Sakura. Only it was a look of pure anger. His glare made everyone other than him and the girl he was staring at think _'if looks could kill'_. Sakura kept staring right back at him seemingly unaffected.

"How _**dare **_you even think that you know anything about that," Sasuke hissed out at her.

With that aged look in her eyes, she replied in an unnaturally calm voice, "I know a lot more than you think. About a lot of things. I admit know more than I should about that in particular, yes. You should still know better than to let your anger cloud over your thoughts like that though. That's exactly what gets people killed in our world. Remember that." She turned away from the seething teen and looked at the still afraid Naruto and the still shocked Iruka, "I'll see you guys later. I have to go. My parents and I have to go prepare for something that has to do with our family."

Slapping some Ryo onto the table she left. Leaving the three males perplexed at her sudden leave.

Sakura however didn't care. She was just reminded of something that she never wanted to think about again.

_Flashback:_

_It was one of the attacks from Orochimaru's militia. There were plenty of casualties on both sides. Sakura had gotten very close (as a friend) to a girl that she was fighting alongside with. Her name was Akina. They had been on a few missions together and had gotten to know each other pretty well. They knew they weren't going to be the best of friends or anything, but they were good acquaintances._

_Their battle was going on and on. Neither side was giving up. Sakura was to stay in back and heal who she could while she could while staying out of the lines danger. Soon, she would be at the front, unleashing her weapon on them to finish this. Not yet though._

_She was keeping a close eye on the people on her side. Watching as both side's numbers dwindled. It was almost time to end it. Almost. That's when she saw it._

_The leader behind the attack had just run Akina through. Her friend was gone. And it was his fault. Sakura snapped. It still wasn't time yet, but she didn't care. She was going to kill him. He needed to die. He led this whole battle and had killed too many of her comrades._

_Forgetting the battle strategy they had, forgetting that she was going to be the one they needed to have to help heal any survivors on their side, forgetting everything but her rage, she unsheathed her katana and lashed out._

_Her energy was forced into the blade and out in waves towards her enemies. In the back of her mind she heard the shouts of her superiors, but she ignored them. All that mattered was killing the enemy._

_And she did. She killed them all. But in her enraged state she wasn't careful of her aim and hit a few comrades. She didn't kill anyone on her side, but she severely injured them. She didn't know that she did until after she sheathed her blade again and looked at the damage. Freezing at the sight before her, she wanted desperately to believe that it wasn't her that did that. She knew better though. With tears in her eyes, she quickly decided to heal as many as she could. It was obvious who had been hit by her attack, the wound patterns showed it all. She ran to them first. She did her best, as did the other healers, but only half of the people that Sakura had injured survived. _

_Since then, Sakura never let her anger get to her. In battle, it didn't matter who she was fighting with or against. All that mattered was that she stuck to the strategy and that she was protecting her village. That was all she needed. It kept her mind clear, and gave her something worth fighting for._

_**End flashback**_

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Sakura tried to keep in mind that she was still being watched. She couldn't be caught. She had to keep it cool until Tsunade showed up. Even still she had to lay low when her shishou was here. No exceptions.

Drilling those thoughts in her head, the pinkette almost literally ran into Hinata.

"Oh I'm sorry Hinata-chan. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."

Smiling shyly, the Hyuuga heiress said, "Oh no. Don't worry about it. I wasn't paying attention either."

Sakura smiled. She knew the lavender-eyed girl only ever stuttered when Naruto was around. Too bad he was too thick to realize that she liked him.

Deciding that she didn't quite want to go home yet, Sakura said, "Are you busy?"

"Oh, no. I was just walking around. Our team finished training."

The green-eyed girl's smile widened. "Oh cool. Do you want to hang out? I mean I'll understand if you don't. I'm just asking."

The indigo-haired girl nodded her head and said, "Sure Sakura-san. Do you want to go to the tea shop?"

"Sure. So how has your team been? I bet you guys are less annoying than us."

Laughing lightly, Hinata replied, "No, Kiba-kun and Shino-kun are really nice. They're just different."

Laughing as well, Sakura said, "You're lucky. Sasuke and Naruto are cool and all, but they bicker like an old married couple! I'm spreading the word to everyone. They have gotten into five arguments, two fist-fights, and almost knocked each other out. And that's just today."

Shaking her head, Hinata said the same thing Iruka had said earlier, "They can't be that bad."

With a rueful smile, the pinkette said, "Oh yes, they can. It got as far as Naruto dumping his _**ramen**_ on Sasuke today. That of course caused Sasuke to try and kill him. It was a good thing Iruka-sensei was with us and helped me hold Sasuke back. If he wasn't, I'm pretty sure Naruto would be in the hospital right now."

And so the conversation went on between the two kunoichi. Even though they hadn't talked at all while they were in the academy, they clicked pretty well as friends. They ended up talking and hanging out for about an hour and a half before Hinata had to go and Sakura decided to go home finally.

Relatively calm now that she wasn't thinking about Sasuke's outburst and her bad memory, Sakura walked right to home with no second thoughts. She was ready to go and do a bit of flexibility and speed training. She wasn't ready, however, to walk into her fuming mom.

In a deathly low voice, Yuuka said, "I don't _care _if it's supposedly respectable in the shinobi world. _Get_. That. **Thing.** Out. Of. My. House. _**Now!**_"

For a moment, Sakura had no idea what her mom was talking about. Then she realized that her mom must be still freaking out over Katsuyu. That didn't make sense though. She reverse summoned her this morning. That could mean only one thing.

Walking in and closing the door, the young Haruno said, "Mom, this is really important, where is Katsuyu?"

The Haruno matriarch didn't say a thing in her anger. Instead she pointed up the stairs in the general direction of the office room. Without another look at her mom, Sakura ran upstairs and into the office. There, on the bottom shelf of the bookshelf, was the slug that Sakura had reverse summoned that morning.

Taking a more serious tone in her voice, the green-eyed shinobi greeted the slug, "Hello Katsuyu. I'm assuming Tsunade-shishou sent you."

The summon slug answered, "Yes. She says, 'One week. No more, no less. Make sure everything is ready. Plans have changed slightly'. And you're supposed to take me to the Third to inform him of her arrival. Yes, you are to be there when I tell him. I'll explain more while we're there. Get yourself ready and let's go. We're supposed to do this as soon as possible."

Nodding at the acid-spitting summon, she picked up the mini-Katsuyu and put her on her shoulder. Then the slug climbed under the cloth of the girl's shirt and rested on her undershirt. Before the pinkette could even question this action, the female slug cut her off.

"I don't want your mom to start her screeching again."

Laughing lightly, the green-eyed medic-nin walked out of the office and sensed her father coming home. Perfect.

Walking downstairs and seeing her mother, she paused and said, "Don't worry, she's not in there anymore. I have to go do something. I'll explain more when I get home. It might take a while though. Tsunade-shishou's going to be here in a week exactly. Just a heads up. Dad's going to walk through the door in about two minutes so I'm just going to tell him on my way there."

Too shocked to process everything, Yuuka just said, "Okay."

Sakura walked out of the house and towards the general area of the Hokage office. Not even a minute later, she ran into her dad.

"Well, I don't think Mom managed to process all of the information I told her all at once. I'm off to the Hokage tower. Tsunade-shishou's going to be here in a week and I'm probably going to take a long time talking to the Hokage so it'll probably be a while before I come back home."

Taking a second to take in all of the information he was just told, Daiki asked, "How do you know all this?"

Katsuyu came out of the pinkette's shirt and the Haruno patriarch saw her and understood. Nodding in understanding, the two Haruno shinobi parted ways.

**xXx**

It didn't take long before Sakura got to the Hokage tower and was waiting outside Sandaime's office. There were already people there and she was to wait patiently before going in there.

Well, luckily for the quick-tempered girl, it wasn't long before two jonin came out.

"Kurenai-sensei, Asuma-sensei, hello."

Both of the jonin jumped at the girl. They hadn't noticed her, and weren't expecting a genin to know them.

Taking note of her hair, the red-eyed kunoichi asked, "Aren't you Sakura Haruno? Kakashi's new student?"

Smiling once again, the green-eyed pinkette said in a cheery voice, "Yup! And Hinata-chan's your student and Asuma-sensei, Ino-pig-chan's your student too right?"

Laughing at the nickname for the blonde, the smoking shinobi said, "Yeah. She wasn't kidding when she said that you two have bazaar nicknames for each other."

Still cheery, Sakura said, "Yup! Pig-chan actually owes me lunch…hm…I'm going to have to track her down tomorrow and remind her. So I might see you tomorrow. Anyway, I have to go talk to Hokage-sama so I guess I'll see you guys around!"

Bidding the girl goodbye, the two adults left the pinkette girl.

After walking in the office and closing the door though, the girl's demeanor pulled a 180. She was all business now.

Closing the door, the girl turned to look at the aging Hokage. She gave a polite smile just as he gave her a friendly grandfatherly smile.

"My dear Sakura, what brings you here? And at such a late hour?"

Loosening up just a bit, she sat in the seat that was right across from him and said, "A lot of things, but it's not up to me to tell them to you."

"Oh? And who is it up to?"

Taking the summon slug off her shoulder, she put Katsuyu down on the desk in front of them. Sarutobi nearly dropped his pipe in shock.

"K-Katsuyu?"

The slug ignored the man's shock and said, "Hello Sarutobi. Tsunade-hime has a lot to say, as does Sakura-hime. However, I must first speak for Tsunade-hime.

"She will arrive at the village gates here at noon exactly one week from today. She will arrive here under the false pretense of looking for an apprentice. She will have more information for you when she arrives. I can't give you that information though. She's really going to be here because she and Sakura-hime used the Time-Space-no-jutsu. So now they're here, trying to keep what happened from happening again."

Taking everything in, the aged shinobi thoughtfully stared at the girl before him. She looked right at him with a passive expression.

"So, Sakura, where do you stand in all of this? I need a little bit more information before I go along with this. I would like to hear it from you."

Looking at him with that aged look in her eyes, she started telling him as much as she knew she could, "Well, seeing as I was the one to ask Tsunade-shishou to do the jutsu, I guess I have the most responsibility in this. With what happened in the future, you would understand. Orochimaru is the cause of this all. He attacked the village…a lot. Too many times to count. He went after our weakest points and used everything he had against us repeatedly. In the end, he killed everyone. Tsunade-shishou and I were the only ones left and we both were at our breaking point. So we came back to fix things before they go wrong."

Nodding in understanding, the aged legend took another moment to register everything. He took a deep breath and said, "I want to hear what you request of me."

Pausing a moment, she replied, "Well, it would be nice if you called off the ANBU. It's a little hard to do everything that I have to do with them constantly watching me. This information is entirely confidential. No ANBU inlets, and no information leaves this room. Don't get mad at my family or Kakashi-sensei. They weren't allowed to tell you. They've really only known for I think two days. If you can get a home ready for Tsunade-shishou and Shizune-nee-chan, that would be perfect. She will kill my parents by the end of the first night with them. And lastly, this year's chuunin exams need to be on double guard. Especially from the Sound Nin. I think that's all."

Chuckling at the rosette in front of him, he said, "Okay. Well, I think I can do all of that. I just have one last question."

"Oh? What would that be?"

"Shizune has been Tsunade's only apprentice. And she's only been taught in the medical field. What has my former student taught you?"

Smirking lightly, she got a sly look in her eyes and said, "I became known as Tsunade's pink-haired double. Except I actually have better chakra control. I surpassed Tsunade-shishou. In strength, medical skills, and jutsus in general. I was very proud of myself when I finally surpassed her."

"I see this. I'm proud of you. I can't wait until she shows up. It's been a long time since I last saw her. Does she still have a gambling problem?"

"You bet! The Legendary Sucker is still out there."

"I'm not surprised. Thank you for sharing all of this with me. I'll see you tomorrow. It's your team's first mission."

Having been dismissed, the green-eyed girl left. In a better mood than ever, Sakura went home. Luckily her parents didn't interrogate her when she got home. Instead she was finally able to clean off and get some rest. Tomorrow was going to be a loooong day.

**XxX**

"Sakura!!! It's time for you to get up!!! Eat, get dressed, explain what the heck happened last night!" could be heard from behind our favorite pinkette's door at 6:15 in the morning. Groaning from being awakened, the green-eyed girl called to let her father know that she was getting up.

After more grumbling and complaining that went unheard by everyone but her, she went into her bathroom and splashed water on her face in order to help get her more awake. Without feeling that there's an immediate potential threat coming, she had an awfully hard time waking up in the morning.

Luckily for her, her dad happened to know what that was like. He went through five years of getting used to getting up in the morning quickly. It took him too long to learn that if there was the immediate danger feeling, he could get up. So while his only daughter was in her bathroom trying to wake up, he was outside the home.

Sakura was trying to get the gunk out of her eyes when she suddenly felt a chakra spike, heard a loud crash, and her mother's terrified scream from the kitchen.

With the adrenalin of protecting her family running through her, Sakura ran out of her bathroom, crashed out of her room, and bursted into the kitchen in a defensive position with a kunai in hand.

Her mom had her hand on her heart with her eyes closed. Sakura looked around and found that her dad was standing in the doorway of the back door with an approving and knowing look in his eyes and Yuuka was slowly getting a grip of herself.

After relaxing, she half-heartedly glared at her dad. He was the only one that could have known that she would have trouble with getting up in the morning without immediate threats being there. He shrugged at her with a look of "what did I do". Sakura couldn't hold the grudge. She started to laugh.

Soon, her mom had breakfast ready for all of them and they had a pleasant meal. Sakura finished her food and cleaned off her dishes to go upstairs and get ready for the day.

Soon, the green-eyed girl was sitting back at the kitchen table to talk with her parents.

She sat and waited for her parents to start. Of course, her dad, being the one that actually had any idea what was going on for the young time-traveler, started off the conversation.

"Well, you know what we want to know. What exactly happened last night?"

Taking a deep breath, she sensed something coming her way, and froze. Eyes wide and body shaking, the pinkette got up and ran upstairs. This couldn't be happening. Not now. Oh Kami please not now!!! Why did this have to happen now?! She was going to handle this later! She would be ready later!

Jumping through her still open door, she just barely managed to catch the figure from jumping out of her window.

"Oh no you don't!" was all that was heard before she launched herself at the person in her room.

**XxXxXxXxXxXxX**

**A/N:**** DON'T KILL ME!!!!!!!! I PROMISE YOU I WILL UPDATE SOON! I can't promise that it will be long, but I can promise that it will be soon! Within the next month I promise!!! DON'T KILL ME PLEASE!!!!!!**

**Now, I have to do it.**

**Who was it that was in Sakura's room?**

**What made Tsunade have to change plans and come to Konoha so early?**

**How is Kakashi going to react when he finds out that the secret has been told to the 3****rd**** Hokage?**

**What is Sakura going to do when Tsunade shows up? **

**Everything changes now. What's going to happen next? Tell me what you think in a REVIEW! They keep me going! Please! Review!**

**To my reviewers thank you!**

**EdwardIs4Me:**** I am sorry for the wait. Life is mean. Anyway, thank you for the review! Hope you liked this chapter!**

**LadyMartel4000****: why thank you! You are very awesome! I'm glad you like it so far and that you think it's running as smooth as I hope it is. ^.^ I'm so so so so so sorry for the wait! Please forgive me!**

**Blinking Through the Haze****: DON'T KILL ME RYKU-CHAN! Thank you! I love you too! (No homo) XD anyway, I love your reviews! Thank you. I am sooo sorry for the wait!**

**DanichT02****: Thank you!!! Sorry for taking so long. Wish I didn't have to keep having my chapters being so few and far in between. Thank you for sticking with my stories. Thank you so much. I hope the chapter was long enough for you. I love Katsuyu too.**

**sakura-hime-cha****: I'm glad you liked the outfits. I tried very hard to get them just right. THANK YOU!!!! You are one of the few of my reviewers that actually let me take my time on my stories. I know I should've updated sooner, but even still, you are the most understanding. ^.^ thank you so much!**

**Jenediah Freak****: I love your reviews! I really do! They are so random and amazing! I'm glad you liked the chapter. I hope you liked this one. ^.^ hehe. Anyway, I hope this chapter was long enough for you. You deserve it being my favorite reviewer. ^_~**

**Kairi the vampyre****: Love ya girly! You're the best! ^.^ 3 hehe! Anyway, you're my favorite Kitty-chan!!!**

**kunoichixakura****: you sure about that? I still think I owe you. Especially after making you wait for so long. I miss your reviews! I'm glad you liked the bell test. I worked hard on it. Of course Sasuke's a loser. XD I love writing him that way. ^_~**

**Koo2Koo1Ka2choo1****: I LOVE YOU!!!!! YOU ARE THE AWESOMEST REVIEWER EVER!!!! I am sooo glad you liked the bell test. I worked so hard to get that just right. I was worried it wouldn't come out as good as it did. Thank you. I'm sorry for the wait. Glad I was help with our update. ^.^**

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**heart broken blossom****: I'M SORRY!!! I WANTED TO UPDATE SOONER BUT LIFE HATES ME!!! DON'T BE MAD! PLEASE!**

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**THERE! MY CHAPTER IS DONE! AND 15 PAGES LONG! Not nearly as long as the last one. But still pretty long. I'm happy. Hope you are too.**

**PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!!! **


	6. she's here! theres more problems

**So yeah……I'm back again. I'm sorry for leaving you off with a cliffy! I was just on a role and I ended up putting that up before I even thought about it. I'm really sorry. BUT!!! I have this new chapter up now! And you get to find out who was in Sakura's room! So really I hope you're happy!**

**Disclaimer: AGAIN with the evil lawyers of doom! What is up with that? You guys already know that I don't own Naruto!!!! I haven't owned it for the last five chapters and I don't own it now! So HAH!**

**On with the story! ^.^**

_Recap:_

_Taking a deep breath, she sensed something coming her way, and froze. Eyes wide and body shaking, the pinkette got up and ran upstairs. This couldn't be happening. Not now. Oh Kami please not now!!! Why did this have to happen now?! She was going to handle this later! She would be ready later!_

_Jumping through her still open door, she just barely managed to catch the figure from jumping out of her window._

_"Oh no you don't!" was all that was heard before she launched herself at the person in her room._

**XxX**

Having already tackled him, she realized that he wasn't struggling. She risked a glance up at him. He wasn't using his jutsu against her. She slowly rose from where she was pinning him down.

"Uchiha Itachi."

He stood with her and let her hold him in her rough manner. Sakura, knowing he wasn't going to try anything against her, loosened her grip just to have her father start yelling.

"Sakura! Get away from him!!!!"

Looking over in the direction of the brown-haired man, Itachi said, "I know it's hard to believe this coming from me, but I mean no harm. I merely wish to talk with your time traveling daughter."

Sighing, Sakura let go of the known S-class criminal and closed her window then led the ex-ANBU member past her parents (whom were in a jutsu Sakura cast explaining everything that was happening) to the office room. There, she secured the house with a small genjutsu and turned to the man she had come to know of on almost a personal level.

"This probably would have been better if Tsunade-shishou was here, but I guess your circumstances wouldn't allow it. Go ahead Itachi-san; talk before my dad figures out a way to get past my genjutsu."

Nodding at the pinkette before him, he started talking, "Obviously you know that I somehow got caught in your time traveling jutsu and I know about everything. I am here to warn you that after you eliminate the threat of Orochimaru, you must work with your mentor and the other Sanin to keep akatsuki from reaching here. Kyuubi will be their main focus sooner than later and then Madara will come after the village itself. His main weakness is the body of his original self. After I get more information on the location of it I'll send it to you or your Sanin mentor."

After hearing him pause for so long, the aged yet young girl said, "Thank you for telling me this. I'll be sure to relay it back to my mentor when she arrives. Is there anything else you wish to say?"

The Haruno couldn't see the smirk from behind the high color of the cloak he was wearing as he told her, "My foolish little brother needs to realize when he has good things right in front of him. If you don't mind, help him see what he has before he loses it."

Slightly taken aback by the randomness of the comment, she nodded anyway and said, "I understand. Again, thank you for telling me all of this. It would probably be best if you left now. My dad can keep to himself but there is only so much that he can keep away from his Hokage. He won't be able to hold back if you're still here when he gets out of that jutsu."

Nodding in understanding he said, "Good bye Sakura-san."

"Good bye Itachi-san."

With that the man left in a blink of an eye and Sakura prepared herself for her parents.

3

2

1

"HARUNO SAKURA!!!!! GET OVER HERE RIGHT THIS INSTANT!!" could be heard in stereo from her parents. She went out and calmed down her parents as she explained everything from Itachi to the Hokage to Tsunade coming sooner than she expected.

Soon Sakura was worn out and weary. Off to training she went. Kakashi had better be smart and arrive sooner than he usually does.

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX**

"TEME!"

"Tch. Dobe."

In a tired voice, Sakura said, "Please guys, please, just this once, would you not argue like you always do?"

Taken aback by the lack of screaming and the tired look in Sakura's eyes, the two boys actually listened to her for once. Of course that came with a price. Naruto started to pester her.

"Ne Sakura-chan, what's wrong? Why do you look so tired?"

She sighed again and said, "I'm fine Naruto. I'm just really tired of you two pointlessly bickering over nothing!" Naruto was cut off before he could even interrupt, "I don't care who it is that starts them, I don't care whose fault it is, I don't care what you think of each other, I care about the fact that I'm always the one left to break you two up since Kakashi-sensei is always late!"

"Did someone say my name?" was heard from behind the pinkette.

Whipping around to see her sensei, Sakura literally growled at him and said, "What is it with you and always being late? And I don't want some bogus excuse either!"

Blinking at the irate girl before him he realized that the pinkette in front of him was ready to kill for more than just him being late. Deciding that it would be smarter for him to tell the truth for once he said, "I was getting the information for our first mission as a team. We'll be doing about three of them today."

Naruto shouted with joy and started attacking his sensei with questions and the blonde's two teammates suppressed groans of distain. Sasuke because he didn't want to deal with his supposedly ex-fangirl and the knucklehead for three long missions and Sakura because she knew that it was going to be three very annoyingly trivial things that she would grow tired of quickly.

_**4 HOURS LATER**_

"Well, that's it. That was the last mission for today. Tomorrow we'll do some training and then the next day we'll be back on missions then after that back to training. That will be our schedule from now on."

Sighing with relief, Sakura watched as her sensei left in his usual fashion. Knowing that her best friend was waiting, she bid her two teammates good-bye and ran off to go find Ino.

She got to the training grounds just in time to see Asuma telling them good-bye. She decided to be sneaky and went up a tree. Just as Asuma was turning to leave, she jumped down from the branch she was on and said in a falsely energetic voice, "Oh hello there Asuma-sensei! I hope I'm not interrupting."

Blinking at the pink-haired girl before him, the smoking shinobi said, "Hello Haruno-san. You weren't interrupting. I was just leaving. You and Ino can both go off and shop or whatever it is you will be doing."

Nodding at him and thanking him, the two rivals went off. "Pig-chan, you still owe me lunch."

"Oh yeah…I was hoping you'd forget about that…guess not…"

"Nope! Now come on, we're going to this really nice tea house!"

Laughing at her crazy friend, Ino followed her and tried to convince her friend that she should pay for her own meal and they would just be even. Poor girl, she couldn't even convince her to pay for just the tip.

In the end, Sakura was nice and paid for the tip and had a relatively cheap meal. Of course she did let Ino sweat it out a little bit before she decided to be nice.

As the day went on, Ino and Sakura were just hanging out, being girls, but eventually Sakura challenged Ino to a little competition that they had no idea would end up like it would.

"Ino, if I hit more targets than you, you pay for my lunch at an expensive restaurant. If you win, I pay for your lunch."

Smirking in confidence because her last few training sessions had been on weapon training, Ino accepted the offer and just as they were about to start up their sparing match, they were interrupted by a voice.

"Oh, hey Sakura-chan, what are you up to?"

Looking over, the two light haired girls saw another girl with chocolate brown eyes smiling and waving at them. Sakura, being her energetic self, beamed at the new girl and ran over to hug her. Animatedly she introduced the brunette to her blue-eyed best friend and explained the competition. Tenten decided to join the deal and as they were about to start, they were interrupted again, this time by a certain Hyuuga heiress. Sakura convinced the shy girl to join the competition.

Now it was all the girls versus each other. This was going to be fun.

_**Half an hour later**_

Panting and gasping, the four girls looked at each other and smiled. It was fun. Tiring, exhausting, challenging even, but fun nonetheless. Sakura looked about herself at her friends and laughed. They had just gotten into an entire war with each other over a small little challenge that started with just her and Ino. Ino, knowing what her best friend was laughing about started laughing, and soon all of them were laughing. After a while they calmed down and decided that Hinata would go through and count who hit the most targets since she was the only one that they all could trust enough not to cheat.

In the end it was a tie between Sakura and Tenten for first and Hinata got the next best leaving Ino to pay for everyone's lunch. Off they went to a nice restaurant called Ishikawa and nearly gave Ino a heart attack just seeing cheapest meal prices. Eventually the others pitched in and completely emptied their money savings.

They had a good time. And when Sakura was leaving to go home she found herself in a really good mood. That was, until she realized that she had only 2 days left before Tsunade would show up. Knowing this, she went home in a hurry and started to think of everything that she could warn her parents about so that they would stay one the wild-tempered woman's good side.

**(A/N:**** okay. I know I shouldn't really do this, but I'm just going to time skip straight to Tsunade arriving because I honestly can't think of anything that would work to fill in the two days without it being very boring and pointless. Sorry if you're disappointed.)**

_**2 DAYS LATER AT THE VILLAGE GATES:**_

With permission from Kakashi, Sakura skipped out on the missions for that day and restlessly waited for Tsunade to show up with Shizune. She wasn't sure if Jiraiya was going to be there as well, but she didn't really care all that much for the perverted man. She was set on making sure her mentor was kept in a tolerant mood. She didn't really care about much else.

That was the reason to Sakura being jumpy at every single sound of approach. She kept on thinking that Tsunade was going to be irate after having to travel so much back to a village she had seen the destruction of. Kotetsu and Izumo kept on messing with her while watching the front gates with her. They were alerted to the arrival of a very powerful and important person and were curious about the person that this girl was waiting for.

Izumo finally cracked and decided to be nice and said, "So…You said your name was Sakura right?"

Nodding at the man she sighed and said, "Yes. I'm Haruno Sakura. Yeah, my dad is an ANBU."

Kotetsu, still being persistent at discovering the person the girl was waiting for, continued on, "I see. Do you have any relatives or family friends coming in for your dad maybe?"

Sakura smirked, "Oh no. It's not a person for my dad. My dad does hold high respect for this person though. They've never actually met. They aren't coming for my mom either. It's all for me."

Confused even more, the two men persisted and eventually they changed tactics and tried figuring out who the person was by figuring out what kind of person this pinkette is. By association they could try figuring it out.

In the end they started talking and getting to know each other. The two finally gave up on figuring out who the mystery person was and just waited with the green eyed girl for whoever it was.

_**2 HOURS LATER**_

"And that's why I am never going to have curry ever again in my life!" Kotetsu finished his tale and the two others laughed with him.

After catching her breath, Sakura sensed two very familiar presences coming their way. Quickly, she composed herself and made sure she seemed presentable for her mentor. The two males caught on to her change in demeanor and became serious. Focusing on the road outside the gates, the three shinobi waited in suppressed excitement. Within minutes Sakura had a wide grin flash across her features as Tsunade and Shizune appeared on the path.

Kotetsu and Izumo had only one idea of who this woman could be, and they didn't think that it fit their mental picture of who she should have been.

Keeping their silences until they were with good conversational distance of each other, Tsunade started smiling as she neared her daughter-like student.

Finally being within a good distance, Sakura could hold herself no longer. "Tsunade-sama, it's good to see you."

With false formality between them, Sakura tried to act the part of the good, well-behaved student she should be acting like when she so desperately wanted to run up to her mentor and hug her in joy of knowing that finally things in making the future play out better than what had unfolded before.

After formal introductions were done between Sakura and Shizune, the three walked off towards the Hokage tower, but not before Sakura discretely winked and stuck her tongue out at the two stunned guards.

After being a good distance from the gates and not quite at the heart of the village, Tsunade and Sakura got a chance to have an actual conversation.

"I hope you traveled well. I know how irritating it can be."

"Oh it was decent. The fact that I was kept from blowing all of my money for once didn't really help. But that's not _my_ fault." Tsunade pointedly looked at Shizune.

Shizune immediately started to act defensive and a little nervous trying to say that Tsunade shouldn't put such a bad reputation up and put herself in so much debt and Sakura had a fit of nostalgia at that. She started to giggle.

The two older women looked at the rosette questioningly which just made the emerald-eyed girl laugh even more. Soon thinking about it, Tsunade caught on and started to laugh as well.

Poor Shizune was left out of the loop. She knew that the two before her had a past with each other that she wouldn't come to truly understand that bond until she saw it in action. She now knew why that was.

The three of them kept up a good conversation as they made their way to the Hokage tower. Shizune, knowing how to read people's personalities found herself liking the young girl before her. She could hardly believe that she was as old in spirit as she was. She looked so innocent and kind. The mere thought of this girl going through as much as the dark haired woman was told she went through was unbelievable.

It made Shizune think about how angelic faces could mask the darkest of pasts and the deepest of scars.

As they got closer to the Hokage tower it was official that all of Konaha knew of Tsunade the Kunoichi of Legend was back in Konaha along with her assistant Shizune and their pig Tonton. Unfortunately, few people cared to remember the two latter travelers.

Soon there was an entire crowd of people surrounding the front of the Hokage Tower to see the legendary Slug Princess. Knowing this was going to happen, Kakashi had made sure to have his two students walking towards the Hokage tower to report their missions as completed for that day, even without the third student.

Sakura, knowing that this was going to happen, stepped up in front of Tsunade with an exasperated sigh and started to make her way through. The poor crowd didn't know what was coming.

"GET OUT OF OUR WAY!!!! TSUNADE NEEDS TO SEE THE HOKAGE AND YOU'RE BLOCKING UP THE WAY TO HIM! MOVE IT!!!!!"

Quite a few people that knew Sakura as the innocent quiet little girl that used to tail her parents around in the market were so shocked by the outburst that they immediately complied without much fuss. The others went along with it knowing that they would get a chance to see the big-busted woman as she went into the building. Just as they got to the door Kakashi showed up behind the group and said,

"Long time no see Tsunade-sama. Good to see you. I trust my student hasn't given you any problems in bringing you here."

Kakashi, Naruto, and Sasuke followed the blonde and her apprentices into the building. As soon as the doors were shut and they got past the reception area on the first floor Tsunade got going, "Oh Sakura was good. Don't act like you sent her to get me though. You won't get credit for what you don't deserve."

Sakura decided not to get involved and turned to her teammates. "So what did you guys do while I was gone?"

Naruto got animated and said in a rush, "Oh we went on some missions. We had to catch this demonic cat! I swear that thing was possessed! Teme here kept being loud and scaring it off, but in the end I got it under control with my awesome ninja skills! Then we had to take care of this lady's yard and it was crazy! Those weeds were alive! They almost caught Teme on the leg and I had to go take care of him. They were some pretty lame missions but I still ended up being a hero. Even though saving Teme's stupid butt doesn't really count since he's so weak."

Sasuke, being the Uchiha that he was with his pride, said, "Tch, Dobe; the cat was tiny, I saved you each of those times. Dead last."

Sakura interrupted before they could even really get going, "Don't even start that up! We are in the presence of the world's greatest kunoichi who is world renowned for her skills in battle and her medical abilities. You will _**not**_ embarrass me in front of her."

Naruto, not catching the hint that Sakura would deck him if he didn't listen, decided to say, "Huh? That lady? No way. She can't be all that great if I haven't heard of her. But then, I'm so great that I guess anyone lower than me isn't really worth recognition."

Sakura, ready to kill, turned to her mentor and said, "Please ignore this idiot. And ignore what I'm about to do."

Before hearing the woman's reply of "whatever", sakura turned and punched Naruto so hard he went flying down the stairs they were climbing and was going to be stuck down there for a few minutes before he could come back up and join them for the mission report.

Sasuke and Kakashi both made mental notes to never tick the pinkette on their team ever again. Especially when they were on stairs.

Walking into the office of the Hokage, Iruka, who was there for the mission reports with the Sandaime Hokage, nearly died from the shock of seeing the legendary Sanin walk in with his three former students.

"Ah! Tsunade! Good to see you again. You as well Shizune, Tonton," was said in greeting from the pipe smoker in the room.

Tsunade smiled at her mentor and greeted him formally. Bowing she spared a glance at Sakura who was currently glaring a hole through Naruto's head. Straightening up she silently commanded Sakura to behave. Giving him one last glance she turned to her mentor.

"Uh, Tsunade-shishou, uh, maybe they should go first…ya know for the sake of time consumption." She stared at Kakashi in a silent, 'Get the hell out of here' and glared at Naruto.

Sweatdropping, Kakashi scratched the back of his head sheepishly.  
"Uh, yeah we kinda finished our mission¸ so…we'll just leave you alone, to ya know catch up. Bye!" With a poof of smoke he was gone, leaving Naruto and Sasuke to stare at his empty spot in anger.

"Yo, KAKASHI-SENSAI YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO TREAT ME TO RAMEN!" Naruto ran out of the room screaming something about not wanting to die at Sakura's hands. Sasuke, who had been ignored throughout that whole time, just walked out without a word.

Sarutobi dismissed Iruka and the room was left with just the two time travelers, the Hokage, Shizune, and Tonton.

"Okay! Now that the nuisances are gone! We can move on to more important things. Like the fact that I spoke with Itachi Uchiha two days ago and couldn't tell you guys until now!" Sakura said with a fake happy bubbly eager voice.

Raising an eye brow at the girl's obvious sarcastic voice he took a whiff of his pipe. Trying to figure out why the Uchiha had come to see the pink haired girl before him. He couldn't figure it out.

Tsunade smirked at Sakura and arched a brow.

"Sakura-chan why did you raise your voice at your Hokage?" She asked in an overly sweet voice. Sakura took a step back and Shizune gulped.

Sarutobi laughed, smoke coming out of his mouth.

"Tsunade-chan, you still have that awful but charming temper." Sarutobi said, rolling his eyes. Tsunade shrugged and turned serious. Sakura's head snapped up and Shizune's doe eyes turned rigid.

"So, you spoke to Itachi Uchiha. What did he say? Exactly what he said, I know you like to filter your thoughts Sakura." Tsunade said, patting her head.

Sakura scowled at not being able to sum it up to keep it short, but began to repeat everything that went down from the time he arrived to her home to the time he left. It was going to take a little while.

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX**

Sakura stood there, waiting with slightly bated breath for their reactions. Tsunade looked troubled, Shizune looked confused and Sarutobi looked contemplative.

"I believe that this complicates an already complicated situation," Sarutobi said standing up. He walked to the window and stared at the village. Seeing all the citizens walk around, laughs, hug there loved ones and wait on their children. None of them knew the worst was coming. Not even he knew what was coming.

"I'm glad I decided to arrive sooner than later. I don't understand about this Madara thing though. Madara is dead," Tsunade said.

"No my dear student, he is not dead. He is as alive as we are, even more so. I never thought this would come this far. We really do have a lot on our plates. Madara didn't die during that battle against our first Hokage. He had been weakened from it, to the point that even our best medics at the time could find no trace of him being alive. During the middle of my term as Hokage of our village, Madara made his first move to make it known that he was still out there. He was the one that directed the beginning of the biiju capture and sealing process. It was done through the power of his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. I along with two others realized that it was in fact Madara doing this. We still don't know what he is planning. I found out that the attack of the nine-tailed fox was controlled by Madara. All of what happened that night was planned by him."

Taking another puff from his pipe and letting it out in a puff of smoke to let them register this information, he continued, "Knowing this, we can now prepare for all of what's going on."

The four of them sat there in silence for a few moments. Then Shizune spoke up, "So Madara, one of the village's most dangerous threats of all time, is not only still alive, he's planning something that's obviously not good, and we need to stop him."

"We also can't forget all of what's going on with Orochimaru. He was the original threat that made Sakura and I come back in time in the first place," Tsunade interjected.

Sakura went off from there, "Itachi even said that only after we deal with Orochimaru we should deal with Madara."

"That's another thing to take into account. Itachi was not supposed to be part of the time travel jutsu. How do we know that he was the only one to have been part of this?" the pipe smoker asked.

That sent another round of silence throughout the group. No one had thought of that.

With a quiet voice Sakura gave the answer that everyone had running through their mind, "We don't know."

"We need to find a way to figure it out," Tsunade said. "We went through with making the decision to come back Sakura, we need to make sure that anything like what happened with Itachi didn't happen with others."

Nodding in agreement with a serious look on her face, Sakura let her mind race for a while. _'Who else might know? What will they do? Why didn't we think of this before? Why didn't I think of this when Itachi showed up? What the hell am I going to do?'_

Looking at her mentor with that same unnaturally aged look in her emerald eyes, Sakura said something she had feared ever since the jutsu, "We might have bitten off more than we can chew Tsunade-shishou."

"We might have, but we're going to have to work our way through it, we can't change what we've already done. We're here to change what can't happen," the honey-eyed sanin said with conviction.

The people in that room had no idea what the future had in store for them. None what so ever. They would soon find out.

"Well, for the time being, we have all of our problems out on the table. We know that nothing that was discussed in this room is to be leaked to anyone. Not even Kakashi or Daisuke or any other person you might trust. I'm sorry Sakura; I know it will be hard to keep this from the people around you. You can let them know that Itachi is in fact on our side and that he's here to help us. You're going to have to keep the information about Madara from them, but I will allow you to inform them of anything that goes on with our efforts against Orochimaru."

All of them nodded in understanding.

"Well, in order for us to part on better terms than these problems, I'm going to chose now as a time to inform all of you that, Tsunade, you Shizune, and Tonton will be staying at Sakura's house for a week. That's what it came down to with my searches for you to get an apartment to stay in. next week you will be able to move out, but for right now, you three will be very close with Sakura and her parents. Tsunade, try not to kill them, they are very good people. Your temper may be something that Sakura can manage to handle, but her parents aren't as experienced as she and Shizune are."

This caused the two apprentices to laugh at the truth in that. Sakura especially found the comedy in the truth of it. She had been trying desperately to prepare her parents for her mentor's temper and now was the time to put her efforts to the test. This would be interesting.

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX**

Sakura smiled as she led the blonde woman along with her dark eyed assistant and the pig Tonton to her house. She no longer had any worries showing on her face.

She had plenty of things on her mind, but she pushed them aside. They had left the Hokage building with slightly lighter moods than they had entered, and Sakura decided to let that mood carry her for a while.

As they walked to the door Shizune stopped them before walking in.

"Okay, I have to do this, Sakura-san, are you sure your parents are ready for Tsunade?"

Pausing a moment to go over the things she'd done to prepare her parents as well as herself, the rosette was sure of her answer, "Yeah, they're ready for her. If not it'll only be a week. If I can handle my first month of training with Tsunade they can handle having her in the same house for a little while."

Tsunade, tired of hearing the talk, interrupted, "Will you two stop talking like I'm not standing right here?"

In unison you could hear the two girls go off, "Gomenasai Tsunade (-shishou)! We didn't mean to be so rude!"

All three of them looked at each other and laughed. Shizune knew she was going to be very close with Sakura. She was just one of those kinds of girls.

With the bright mood going between all of them, they walked in the door and the young kunoichi said, "Mom! Dad! I'm home! We have company!"

Within seconds the two parents were in the living room as the kunoichi were taking off their shoes in the hall.

Introductions were made and Sakura had to assure her mom that Tonton wasn't going to be a problem in her clean house. The Haruno patriarch had tried to be formal like he always felt he would be, but it just didn't work with how quickly all the females around him got the natural double 'x' chromosome reactions with each other.

Soon there were jokes flying, laughs, and an all around comfortable atmosphere around them. Nothing was forced and nothing was that hard. The next week wasn't going to be that hard for them.

Things were finally truly kicking off to a brighter future. Yeah, there were going to be problems, and there were complications, but they could handle it. They had to. Lives depended on it.

**XxX**

**A/N: It's up! Finally! I am truly sorry for the wait you all had. I just couldn't update though. There's been a lot going on for a while and it was all just a bunch of bad timing. At least I didn't leave you guys off on a cliffy like I usually do! I hope that makes up for some of it!**

**Really though, it started off with a busy schedule with a concert I had at school for band, then writer's block, and then even more with me leaving for a while with my family. For a while after that I had writer's block again. **

**The latest thing that's been keeping me away though was a death of a friend, and I'm not going to apologize for that. I honestly couldn't bring myself to do much with her dying and it's a stretch that I even got this much done since then. I'm picking up my feet and it's all a work in process so just bear with me please.**

**So moving on to the review replies!**

mouse123: I'm sorry you've had to wait for so long. Everything piling up hasn't been good to me. :P I'm glad you liked the story and the past chapters. I hope you liked this chapter too! ^.^ I'm happy I didn't leave it off on another cliffy….again. I'm really sorry for everything. Oh and Tsunade's temper loves to flair at everything. Sakura likes to be paranoid. Haha! Thank you for your reviews!

BlackBaccaraRose: I'm glad you liked it! I'm sorry for the wait for everything. Life hates me. :/ anyway I hope you liked this chapter and I'm going to try my best to update again soon. I really am sorry. I don't have any promises for when I'll update. Sorry. Thank you for your review!

Felonyisacrime: I LOVE YOU!!!! YOUR REVIEWS ARE EPIC! I'm glad you thought the chapter was good! I hope you thought this one was good too! :D anyway I really do hope you liked this. I have no guarantees for when I'll update again, but I'll try. Thank you for your review!

LadyMartel4000: I'm glad you could forgive me. But now I must beg for your forgiveness again! I really didn't mean to take so long to update. Life piles the worst up on me at the worst times. I hope you liked it and lol! I never pictured it that way until you pointed it out like that! XD gross! Not like that! Thank you for your review!

sakuraxgaara2233: I'm sorry I didn't write sooner. I hope you liked it though. I truly did mean to write sooner. I am sorry. I hope you weren't disappointed with this chapter or anything. I tried to keep it from being long and boring. Thank you for your review!

IshimaruTsubaki: I feel accomplished to know that people couldn't guess what was going to happen! Thing is for a while there I didn't know who it was either. O.o weird I know but still. I hope you still like it even after the long wait. Thank you for your review!

Because We All Knew: Woohoo! I love you! I'm glad you liked the story! =^.^= it's always good to know that people like my stories! And as far as your friend from Japan goes: yay! Go SasuSaku! It is a pity with Karin though. She was a good character. Thank you for your review!

VampireHuntress72095: I really enjoyed your review. I'm glad you liked the idea of the inners and Sasuke's inner crush! ^.~ I'm glad you liked the cliffhanger. I try hard to make my cliffhangers decent enough to the point where people can hate me for the cliffy but at least like the cliffy for the effect. Because even when we are tortured to death by something like that we have to at least appreciate that it was done right. Thank you for understanding that there was reason behind my delays. Only a few people do understand that there's circumstances before actually hearing them. I hope you liked this chapter. I hope that since I didn't leave it off on a cliffhanger for once it was a good ending where people won't mind as much of a wait since there probably will be one. Anyway I'm glad you like this story and I hope you liked this chapter. =^.^=

**~I hope you guys aren't all mad at me for the horribly long wait! I really didn't mean to take this long! Please don't be mad at me! I tried!**

**~~I hope this chapter was up to the standards I apparently set for everyone!**

**~~~LoVe YoU aLl**

**~~~~Your favorite authoress! (You know it!)**

**~CrazyGreyWolfGirl**


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